Blockbuster Closing Store in Palmer Township

 will close its Palmer Township store and start to sell off its stock of videos there next week, according to The Morning Call.

The company already closed hundreds of stores this year including some in the Lehigh Valley. In September, the company closed all its stores in Canada, too.

Now Blockbuster will close the remaining Lehigh Valley stores except one in Trexlertown. According to reports, the stores will stop renting videos Dec. 26, and then have a liquidation sale. The stores will close by mid-February.

Once the dominant movie rental company in the U.S., Blockbuster Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2010 and was sold at auction to Dish Network Corp. earlier this year.

Blockbuster had 3,300 U.S. stores, about 25,500 employees, including 7,500 full-time workers. Now it’s down to about 1,500 stores.

On Tuesday, a Dish Network spokesman said physical stores remain important even as the company expands its video streaming services.

Movie rentals took a huge hit with the rise of mail-in services and web-based video such as Netflix, and rental machines such as Redbox.