Tower Records is latest Westwood Music store casualty. (Up Front).

For 28 years, the Tower Records store in Westwood Village has been a fixture that's stocked most everything that was typical of student life: records, concert tickets, posters, and alternative newspapers.

But the days of flipping through row after row of LPs are long gone for the Sacramento-based retail chain, which is closing its Westwood doors on Feb. 9 after nearly three decades.

As a last ditch effort to recoup its lost business, Tower Records last summer changed the name to Pug'z Records and added vintage clothing and used compact discs. But it didn't help.

The store's planned closure closely follows the shuttering of Wherehouse Entertainment Inc.'s 7,600-square-foot Westwood Village store at the end of the year, even though that lease wasn't up for another two years.

"Sales had deteriorated considerably over the last few years," said Wherehouse President Jerry Comstock. "It made more sense to close it than to keep it open."

It is one of 30 Wherehouse stores to be shut down, leaving the chain with 370 locations. Another 14 stores are expected to close in fiscal 2004.

The closures of two major Westwood retailers within weeks of each other highlights how UCLA students are spending fewer dollars in the Village, once the quintessential college hangout. Instead, the school's 36,000 students can stay on the 419-acre campus for most of their needs at the student union complex, including fast-food restaurants, a mini grocery store, and a beauty salon.

"The students who live in the dorms can get anything they want at the student union store' said Kelly Rayburn, news editor at the Daily Bruin, the UCLA student newspaper. "There may not be much reason for them to go to Westwood 'Village."

For music retailers like Tower and Wherehouse, student frugality is a big reason for their failure to attract the college-age population.

"Tower Records is expensive," said Stephanie Abruzzo, who graduated from UCLA in December. "Most students go somewhere cheaper like Best Buy on Sepulveda Boulevard. They have better prices and free parking."

John Anderson's Duesenberg Investment Co. recently bought three Westwood Village buildings, one of which houses Tower Records. Anderson acknowledged that the Village has some parking problems, but said he was confident the problem can be turned around.

Downloading habits

But record retailers, in the Village and elsewhere, also must cope with the growing popularity of downloading music off the Internet for free or burning compact discs that can then be copied by other students. Even the on-campus record store called Mojo Music has experienced a decrease in sales.

"It's no secret that there is a lot of music that was being bought two years ago that is not being bought today. It is the industry plague," said Comstock.

Torrance-based Wherehouse hasn't turned a profit for two years and preliminary figures for holiday sales show that revenues will be down 12 percent to 14 percent over the previous year. Comstock expects 2002 sales to be off by just as much.

Wherehouse has been diversifying its merchandise mix, relying less on selling new compact discs that make up 60 percent of the $604 million in revenues and more on DVDs, video games, and used CDs.

Tower Records, the storied family-owned music chain, has many of the same problems. After losing a combined $167 million over the last four years, the company recently turned a profit for its first quarter ended Oct. 31 after the sale last fall of its 51 profitable Japanese stores. The $128 million received from the sale helped pay down debt and refinance its loans.

But analysts noted that 40 percent of Towers revenue came from its Japanese operations. "They were able to reduce their debt, but they got rid of a profitable section as well," said Marie Menendez, vice president and senior credit officer at Moody's Investors Service, which rates Tower Records public bonds as a Caal, a highly speculative rating. Tower Record's debt is now over $200 million.

Since last September, the $1 billion company has been in the hands of corporate turnaround specialist Betsy Burton, said spokeswoman Louise Solomon.

Solomon, whose husband, Michael Solomon, is chief executive, said Tower Records is working on improving operations, monitoring store performances and looking at cost containment. It also is diversifying its retail mix to provide more entertainment products such as small electronics and video games.

To combat the Internet problem, the record company last November instituted its own online program that allows customers to download one song for 99 cents or an entire album for $9.99.

But that won't help immediately. More store closings are imminent, store officials said.