EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this story said the
Kmart store in Warsaw, Ind., would be the state's lone remaining
location by the end of the year. That store is slated to close in
November. The story has been updated to reflect the correct
information.
RICHMOND, Ind. — Time after time, Richmond’s Kmart has
survived rounds of store closures by its parent companies, but that
run of good fortune has come to an end.
A spokesperson for Transformco, the entity that now owns Sears
and Kmart stores across the country, confirmed to the Pal Item that
the city’s lone west-side big-box store will be shuttered by the
end of the year.
“After careful review, we have made the difficult but necessary
decision to close the Kmart in Richmond, Indiana,” Larry Costello,
public relations director for Transformco, said in an email.
Liquidation should begin by the middle of this month with the
store closing for good by mid-December.
Costello didn’t answer a question about the number of employees
who would be affected by the closure.
Richmond’s store is one of nearly 100 Kmart and Sears locations
across the country that will be shut down in this latest round of
bad news for the two brands.
There are only five Kmarts left in Indiana, and all will be gone
by the time 2020 rolls around. Four of them are on the newest
closure list. The other store — in Warsaw — was announced
earlier this year to close in November.
The west-side Kmart opened in 1978 and has had multiple
expansions and renovations since, the most recent coming in the
early 2000s, according to Pal Item archives.
A gas station in front of the store opened in 2001 and closed
about 16 years later with no public explanation from the company as
to why.
Kmart’s history in Richmond goes back to 1972 when it moved into
an 84,000-square-foot building on the east side where Planet
Fitness, Big Lots and other businesses are today. That store closed
in 1995.
It’s unlikely another big-box retailer eventually would fill the
150,000-square-foot building on the west side, according to
Economic Development Corporation of Wayne County President Valerie
Shaffer.
“The closure of big-box stores is always tough, especially in a
market like ours where it would be very difficult to attract
another big-box retailer to that location,” Shaffer told the Pal
Item in November for a story about development on Richmond’s west
side.
Shaffer said the EDC likely would have to look for other
potential uses for the building such as a call center or a
distribution hub to put the space back to use.
“We just have to be proactive in thinking of those uses in terms
of how we repurpose that and how we might try to market that in the
future,” she said.
Jason Truitt is the team leader and senior reporter at the
Palladium-Item. Contact him at 765-973-4459
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