Cabela’s has announced they will only open two stores in 2008 and two stores in 2009, down from the original seven planned.

The Hooksett store’s opening, according to a spokesman for the hunting and fishing superstore corporation, has been put on hold due to plummeting store sales and rising costs, mostly due to the current economic downturn facing the nation.

The corporation’s 2007 fourth-quarter earnings report showed a 5.9 percent drop in store sales. For the whole year, store sales dropped 1.2 percent.

“We’re doing everything we can to control internal factors to increase sales and production,” Castillo said, adding the wounded economy is taking its toll on the retail market, and Cabela’s is feeling the effects.

Over the next couple of weeks, according to the project’s developer, the deal between Miami and Pierce, who is constructing the Wingate Hotel on the property, and land owner Tom Palazzi will need to be reworked to shave costs.

While it is highly unlikely, if the players cannot agree on a new financing deal, there is a remote possibility that Cabela’s would scrap the Hooksett store, according to the developer.

While Hooksett was not officially included on the list of seven stores set to open in the next two years and is not currently shown on their Web site’s map marking the “coming soon” stores across the country, the plans originally said the store would likely open by the first quarter of 2009.

“We have never officially announced a store in Hooksett. When all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed, we will put out an official announcement,” said Cabela’s spokesman John Castillo, also acknowledging that real estate teams for the corporation have been in the planning stages with the town.

Gene Beaudoin of Feldco, the Connecticut-based development firm operating under the name New England Expedition – Hooksett LLC for the Cabela’s plans, said his company is doing everything it can to make Cabela’s a reality in Hooksett for 2010.

Beaudoin said his firm found out a few weeks ago that Cabela’s would be cutting costs, and therefore store openings, and wished to restructure their deal with Miami and Pierce on the Exit 11 property slated for the large retail center.

Feldco came into the dealings a little over a year ago when negotiations between Cabela’s and the town didn’t go as smoothly as hoped, Beaudoin said. It was Feldco that pushed forward the reduction of the general obligation bond from $18 million to $2 million, a change which passed overwhelmingly with Hooksett voters in a special election in September.

Beaudoin said he was baffled by Castillo’s statement that Cabela’s had not officially committed to coming to Hooksett, adding there was a deal in place before Feldco even came into the picture.

“The reality is they did indeed have a deal in Hooksett they were trying to move forward on,” Beaudoin said. “We were told that would be a 2009 store.”

In the meantime, he said, the permit process with the town and state has been put on hold until after a new financing deal is struck, which the development companies will be working on over the next few weeks before once again putting it in front of the Hooksett Town Council.

“I would say that we’re disappointed that the store is going to be delayed somewhat, but the delay is not terribly dramatic,” Beaudoin said.

He said there is no timeline on when the negotiations will be through, but added the deal could potentially be extinguished if there is no agreement on the financing plan.

“They hinted that if the deal was not reconfigured, it would be scrapped,” Beaudoin said of discussions with Cabela’s representatives. In addition to tweaking the financing, changes to the site are being explored to cut costs or gain revenue, Beaudoin said, including reducing the size of the site or lowering the planned spot of the building to create more sand that could be sold.

Castillo said the Cabela’s corporation is working to cut transportation and operating costs, increase productivity, create more targeted advertising campaigns and streamline their inventory management practices to save money.

Stores in Scarborough, Maine, and Rapid City, S.D., will still open in 2008. In 2009, Cabela’s will open in Billings, Mont., and East Rutherford, N.J., at the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Nationwide, there are currently 26 Cabela’s stores of varying size already open. Hooksett’s would be the third one to come to New England, the others being the Scarborough store and another in East Hartford, Conn.