Oak Ridge Today

With Kmart lease ending in March, prospective tenants already showing interest in building

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The Kmart store on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge will close in mid-December. The store is pictured above on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The Kmart store in Oak Ridge is closing in mid-December, and the company’s lease expires in March. It’s too early to comment on prospective tenants, but the property owners have already had quite a bit of interest in that building, a manager said Tuesday.

Kmart has been located on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge for 25 years, said Jim Harrison, manager of Oak Ridge Group Associates, which owns the property.

The owners would love to have Kmart stay and be successful, but now that the company has announced they’re closing the store, with a liquidation sale starting Thursday, Oak Ridge Group Associates is working hard to try to get the property redeveloped or leased again, Harrison said. [Read more…]

Kmart store closing in December

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The Kmart store on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge will close in mid-December. The store is pictured above on Friday, Sept. 16, 2016. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

 

The Kmart store in Oak Ridge will close in mid-December, the company said Monday.

“We have been strategically and aggressively evaluating our store space and productivity, and have accelerated the closing of unprofitable stores as previously announced,” the company said in a statement. “We can confirm that we are making the difficult but necessary decision to close the Kmart store at 370 South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge.”

The store will remain open to customers until the mid-December closing and start a liquidation sale on September 22.

“We often hear from our members who are disappointed when we close a store, but our Shop Your Way membership platform, websites, and mobile apps allow us to maintain these valued relationships long after a store closes its doors,” Kmart said in the statement. “As a result, we hope to retain a portion of the sales previously associated with this store by maintaining our relationships with the members who shopped this location.” [Read more…]