Sears at Town Center at Boca Raton mall to close

In the latest wave of department store closures, Sears at Town Center at Boca Raton mall will close in early April.

Sears Holdings Corp. (NYSE: SHLD) announced late Thursday that it would shutter 103 Sears and Kmart locations nationwide amid slumping sales. The only South Florida store on that list is the Sears at 5900 W. Glades Road in Boca Raton.

That would leave the Boynton Beach Mall and the Gardens Mall as the only Sears locations in Palm Beach County, although there’s also a Sears Outlet in West Palm Beach. Sears has been seeking to scale down its Gardens Mall store by subleasing space to Dick’s Sporting Goods.

The 180,029-square-foot Sears store in Boca Raton was built in 1980. While most of the mall is owned by Simon Property Group, the Sears building and its 18.6-acre site are owned by Seritage Growth Properties (NYSE: SGP), a REIT that was formed to hold Sears and Kmart real estate. In many cases, Seritage has established redevelopment plans for those properties, including mixed-use projects at the Aventura Mall and Westfield Broward in Plantation.

Officials with Seritage (NYSE: SRG) couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. But Boca Raton is an attractive market for developers, especially for luxury residential.

News of Sears' closing comes as Town Center at Boca Raton is undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation that will be completed in the fourth quarter. Officials with Simon couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The mall has 220 stores. Its other anchor tenants are Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.

Source: South Florida Business Journal