Kmart, a longtime anchor tenant in the Bridgehampton Commons, has hired the liquidator Eldon W. Gottschalk and Associates to handle the sale of the store contents in advance of the store’s permanent closure on Oct. 20.
The sale began on Saturday but on Sunday, between 11:30 a.m. and noon, the parking lot was nearly empty and foot traffic into the store was slow.
“First, I don’t know how they stayed open so long,” one shopper, Roxanne Panero, said as she entered. “Second, I shop in here all the time, and they will be missed.”
Another shopper, Andrea Cox, who learned about the sale when she saw a car by the Bridgehampton Citarella advertising it, guessed that the new tenant is “probably going to be a Target. Do I really want that? Not necessarily,” she said. Growing up in East Hampton, she remembered it as the “store to go to” for electronics and other items.
Another shopper asked a reporter, “Can you make it a Target?”
Target’s corporate representatives had yet to respond to an inquiry about whether the retailer would move into the space. Nor did Kimco Realty, the real estate investment trust that manages the Bridgehampton Commons, comment on that possibility. A Kimco representative said Monday morning that the company was preparing a statement for the press. That statement never came. Jennifer Maisch, vice president of marketing and corporate communications, would only allow that Kmart was closing and that the store measured 89,935 square feet.
Trader Joe’s, another name bandied about as a potential tenant, said through Nakia Rohde, its public relations manager, that it is “actively looking at hundreds of neighborhoods across the country as we hope to open more new neighborhood stores each year. At this time, we do not have a location confirmed in Bridgehampton, N.Y.”
Representatives of Whole Foods, another retailer that residents have long pined for on the South Fork, and which opened a pop-up in Wainscott in 2012, did not return a request for comment.
In the vacuum of any real information, online speculators are commenting and theorizing on the future tenant. Target? Walmart? Trader Joe’s? Whole Foods?
However, those hoping for a grocer may prove disappointed. Hal Zwick, a commercial real estate broker with Compass, confirmed Tuesday that King Kullen has a clause in its lease stating that it can be the only supermarket in the Bridgehampton Commons. Mr. Zwick would not speculate on a future tenant.
On The East Hampton Star’s Instagram post about the closing of Kmart, a user with the handle @montauk_fishing, requested Bass Pro Shops. Another user speculated on the expansion of Goldberg’s into an “empire,” stating “surely there aren’t enough of them.”
As for non-retail ideas, people suggested affordable housing, an indoor sports facility, a roller-skating rink, and pickleball courts.
The Bridgehampton Kmart was one of only two remaining in the United States, and the largest. A smaller Kmart in Miami remains open. A third remaining Kmart, in New Jersey, closed in 2023.
Kmart and Sears merged in 2005 under the corporate umbrella Sears Holdings, which then filed for bankruptcy in 2018. Its assets were acquired by Transformco, according to a 2021 New York Times article, which told of former Kmart spaces being turned into megachurches, a pharmaceutical company, and even an indoor cannabis cultivation and manufacturing facility.
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Note: This article has been updated since it originally appeared online.