Trimingham?s may close a week earlier than planned as the store?s remaining stock is depleting at a much faster rate than anticipated.

The department store, which shocked the community in March with news that it was going out of business after 163 years, had set the last day of sales as July 27, but yesterday legal counsel Wendell Hollis said the wind-down has gone better than expected and the company may shift the final day to July 23.

?The Paget store closed last weekend,? he said. ?The St. George?s store is about to be closed. The warehouse has been vacated so everything to be sold is now in the Front Street premises.?

Trimingham?s only put merchandise on sale in April, but it has steadily increased discounts with some items now reduced by as much as 70 percent.

Many sections of the Front Street store are now completely empty of merchandise and it is generally so crowded with bargain hunting customers lately that everyday is ?like Christmas sales?.

?It is getting to the end,? Mr. Hollis said.

?It was a bit of an unknown as to how this wind-down would go but it has gone as well as these things can.

?It has been a success from the point of view that we have been able to wind it down, meet all of the company?s obligations and do it in an orderly fashion.?

The store?s cosmetics contracts remain a subject for others to discuss. Trimingham?s has had a virtual monopoly in the area of high end cosmetics and with the popular MAC counter already closed and others almost out of stock, many customers continue to wonder about who will take up the contracts locally and how soon.

The Royal Gazette understands that Phoenix Stores, Gibbons Company and A.S. Cooper and Sons have all expressed interest in the lines, however, Mr. Hollis said that the decision on those cosmetics contracts rests solely with the cosmetic companies themselves. As of last week, no decision had been made.

Speculation has also been rife that Bank of Bermuda plans to install a retail banking centre in Trimingham?s Front Street property and the adjacent property that the store rented from Butterfield, Conyers and Watlington, but the bank remains tight-lipped on its plans for its newly acquired Front Street address.

The recently opened entrances between those properties and the HA&E Smith property will be sealed before Trimingham?s hands over its keys to the bank on August 31.