The Kmart store on Route 58 is listed on the market for rent. Just in case.
The Manhattan-based Feil Organization, which manages the East End Commons site where Kmart and BJ’s are located, listed the store in December.
Kmart’s owner, Sears Holdings, says it has no plans to close the Riverhead store.
“We hold a long-term lease on the Kmart store and it’s business as usual,” Sears Holdings director of corporate communications Howard Riefs said today. “We will continue to serve our members and customers as we have for the last 21 years.”
Late last month, Sears Holdings announced it would close 109 Kmart and 41 Sears stores. That followed the closing of 140 Kmart stores and 30 Sears stores during the first three quarters of 2016. The struggling retailer has closed more than 2,500 stores since 2011 and has posted nearly $10 billion in losses in the last five years.
“Looking at the state of their parent company and the many closings, we thought it made sense to put it on the market now,” a spokesperson for the Feil Organization said. “Their lease doesn’t end until February 2020 and they have not indicated they intend to vacate,” she said.
Sears Holding’s chief financial officer told CNN in December the company “will continue to accelerate the closing of underperforming stores.”
The Riverhead Kmart occupies a 104,000-square-foot freestanding building on the corner of Route 58 and Northville Turnpike.
Riverhead already has vacancies in several very large retail spaces on Route 58 and it has begun to alarm local officials.
“Everything I need, I can buy on this phone,” Supervisor Sean Walter told local business owners at a Riverhead Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting today, pointing to his iPhone. “We are worried about the state of retail and the future of big box stores. We could be looking at a situation like we had on Main Street,” he said.
The supervisor said he intends to ask the town board to undertake a master plan update for the Route 58 corridor. “We need to be proactive. We need to study adaptive reuse of the empty big box stores and adopt new zoning to implement new uses.”
There are four large vacancies on Route 58 already: the former Walmart, Sports Authority and Waldbaum’s stores and the former Joe’s Crab Shack restaurant pad at Riverhead Centre.
Riverhead Walmart relocated from an aging shopping center east of Ostrander Avenue to a new center near the terminus of the L.I. Expressway. The old location remains vacant, though Walter says he believes the owner of that property is very close to signing a lease with Regal Cinemas. The vacated space would be demolished to make way for a new, freestanding movie theater. Regal’s board of directors in November authorized a new multiplex cinema at the site, Walter said today. Their decision is contingent on the property owner upgrading the facade of the western half of the center, which would remain standing, and finding two national restaurants to occupy two freestanding restaurant pads on the site.
“I can’t imagine they won’t agree to that,” he said of property owner Phillips International.
Representatives of Regal Cinemas and Phillips International could not be reached for comment.
No plans have been floated for any of the other large vacancies, the supervisor said.
“It’s very concerning,” he said.
Kmart for rent flyer
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