Kmart’s last large full-size store is set to close on Oct. 20, with significant discounts available at the Long Island location, according to store employees.
Regular merchandise is on sale for 15 to 40 percent off and seasonal items are up 75 percent off, an employee would declined to provide their name told NTD News Monday.
Located at 2044 Montauk Hwy. in Bridgehampton, New York, the more than 90,000-square-foot storefront is the biggest within the Bridgehampton Commons shopping center, which is also home to a T.J. Maxx and Marshalls.
A spokesperson for Kimco Realty Corp., a real estate investment trust that owns the shopping center, didn’t return a request for comment confirming the closure.
Formerly owned by Sears Holding Corporation, which filed for bankruptcy in 2019, the chain was purchased by Illinois-based Transform Holdco LLC, known as Transformco, which purchased all of the chain’s assets in February 2019. A spokesperson for the company didn’t return a request for comment before publication.
Despite investments including $250 million in new capital from Transformco owners and a third-party investor, the company announced it was closing 96 Sears and Kmart stores in late 2019, which left the company with 182 open stores at the time.
“Since purchasing substantially all the assets of Sears Holding Corporation in February 2019, Transformco has faced a difficult retail environment and other challenges,” the company said in a statement at the time.
They cited competition and other factors as a cause for declining sales.
Now, the once-popular retailer has one remaining location in the United States, a small location in Miami, Florida, which sells a variety of home and outdoor goods, clothing, car accessories, and electronics.
The location isn’t the last worldwide, with one location in the U.S. territory of Guam and three in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to searches from Kmart’s store locator and numerous reports.
Over the past 15 years, Kmart and Sears closed 3,500 stores and cut about 250,000 jobs.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Kmart struggled in the marketplace against rivals such as Walmart and Target.
The first Kmart store was opened in 1962 in Garden City, Michigan. Its founder, Sebastian Spering Kresge, opened his first five-and-dime store in downtown Detroit, Michigan, in 1899.