August 16,2018-
Owner offers to lease half of Visalia Sears building
Real Estate Investment Trust – Seritage, who owns several hundred Sears properties around the country including at the Sequoia Mall, is offering to lease out about half the Visalia Sears building on South Mooney.
The solicitation called “Sears Surplus” property is listed by the real estate firm CBRE and predates an announcement in recent weeks that Berkshire Hathaway had agreed to loan this landlord to Sears stores, Seritage Growth Properties, up to $2 billion.
Seritage, spinoff from Sears Holdings three years ago, said in a press release this month that it plans to use the funds to redevelop some 250 properties to replace locations once occupied by Sears or move Sears into smaller locations at each mall.Sears actually leases from Seritage who can call the lease under certain conditions. Score of Sears and Kmart stores operated by Sears Holdings have closed this year alone.
According to the Visalia solicitation that can be viewed online, Seritage is offering to lease some 35,000sf, the south end of the Sears building, with the Visalia Sears shirking its footprint to 35,000sf at the north end attached to the mall. The offer also includes about 10,300sf lease of the auto center.
The marketing brochure says the property is located at the “best retail intersection in the city.”
What happens long term to this retail property, owned by several different entities, is of great interest to the city who hopes the place can be reborn with some new vision.
Discount furniture store locating next to Mooney Target
Bob’s Discount Furniture will locate in the former Sports Chalet space, vacant for the past several years, next to Target on Mooney Blvd in Visalia. The space is over 41,000 square feet.
The company has already started on their tenant improvements according to the the city looking to open later this year.
Bob’s Discount Furniture is headquartered in Manchester, Connecticut. Founded in 1991 with its first store in Newington, Connecticut it is ranked 12th in sales among United States furniture stores according to Furniture Today’s list of Top 100 Furniture Stores. As of May 2018, the company has 99 stores in 16 states, primarily in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and now the West Coast.
Just this year the furniture retailer made a push into the Los Angeles area opening 6 stores. Looks like the SJ Valley is next.
Aldi eyes Tulare shopping center
Aldi Markets has its eye on Tulare says their real estate manager Jeff Luna. “We are looking at a space at the former Kmart, where Ross and DD’s are going in, but we’ve made no commitment” he says.
“Tulare looks like an attractive market for us an we think they could use an additional grocery store.” Most Aldi stores are 15,000 to 22,000sf.
As for other Valley Aldi grocery stores, Luna still expects the new Porterville Aldi to open in early fall but the Hanford Aldi has been pushed back to the 1st quarter of 2019.Luna says they continue to look at several options in Visalia.
SLO shop coming to Downtown Visalia
Letter & Grain, a San Luis Obispo craft shop featuring gifts and decor for the home, will open in Visalia at 115 N. West Street (inside Embellish & Restore). Their number will be 559.712.127