A sign advertises a closing sale at the Sears Hometown Store in Greenfield.
Mitchell Kirk | Daily Reporter
GREENFIELD — Sears Hometown Store in Greenfield is closing and the former supermarket building that’s housed it will be transformed into a multi-tenant space.
The city’s Sears Hometown Store advertised liquidation sales on its Facebook page throughout May for various products, the latest of which went through June 2.
“We appreciate the support of our local community and are incredibly disappointed for having to go,” one of the posts states. “Sears has been a big part of the area for many years but unfortunately we have to close our doors for good.”
A store manager deferred comment to corporate, which did not return a request for comment.
Greenfield is one of dozens of Sears Hometown Store locations that media outlets have recently been reporting are closing across the country.
The store took on about 8,000 square feet on the north end of the former Marsh Supermarket building at 1240 N. State St. last year after moving out of a strip mall on West Main Street, where it opened in 2008. The 40,000-square-foot building ceased as a grocery store in 2017 amid Marsh’s closings across Indiana and Ohio shortly before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
ConsortiumCRE, an Indianapolis-based commercial real estate firm, represents the property. Keith Stark, CEO of the firm, noted Greenfield is far from the only upcoming Sears Hometown Store closure.
“It’s part of a bigger picture,” Stark said. “Unfortunately we have one of them. Sometimes we get caught in the wave.”
The Sears Hometown Store will be out by the end of June, he said.
“There’s going to be a lot happening in the month of June, is my feeling,” he added.
Stark said the building will be remodeled inside and out and the parking lot will be redone. He said it will become a multi-tenant property similar to Brandywine Plaza at the southeast corner of State Street and McClarnon Drive, where a former Walmart underwent a similar transformation — an endeavor Stark was also involved in.
“This time next year there will be a whole different building there so to speak,” he said.
Stark also said that a lease is pending for a portion of the space.
“I don’t want to release names until the lease is signed, and I believe it’s everything but signed,” he said.
It’s a victory for Stark, who’s spoken in the past on the challenges of filling empty Marsh buildings, especially with other grocery stores. He’s said Greenfield isn’t big enough to attract high-end grocers, for instance, and its former Marsh’s close proximity to other supermarkets diminishes interest from that sector as well.
