Sears to open new store in this Boise-area city — but it’ll be smaller than usual
A Sears Hometown Store is slated to open by Sunday, Feb. 1, in downtown Nampa.
The store will go in at the former Canyon County Habitat for Humanity ReStore building at 1404 1st St. S. and measure 12,500 square feet, according to real estate broker Mike Peña. The Hometown locations are much smaller than their mall counterparts. This one will be 12,500 square feet, compared with the 110,000-square-foot former location at the Boise Towne Square mall, which closed in January 2019.
Their product is more limited, too. The stores sell home appliances like washers, dryers, and dishwashers, as well as lawn and garden equipment, but no linens or clothing like their big-box locations.
Justin O’Donnal, district manager for Sears Hometown, said the company is excited for its new location.
“We’re really looking to be a part of the revitalization of downtown Nampa,” he said in a phone interview.
The new Sears Hometown will replace a previous store, 3309 Caldwell Blvd., which was operated by Charles Ellis, a local franchisee. Ellis closed the store earlier this month, and the building has been sold, O’Donnal said.
Until last fall, Sears was a separate entity from its Hometown stores. Those 375-some stores were found mostly in rural areas, run by franchisees.
But in October, Sears’ parent company, Transform Holdco LLC, merged with the entities that controlled its Hometown stores and Outlet stores with the hope of scaling its operations.
Yet some franchisees are still struggling to keep their shelves stocked since major vendors stopped supplying Sears after it filed for bankruptcy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
For now, the downtown Nampa store will be managed by the parent company, although O’Donnal said that he hopes to have it under franchisee management within the next few months.
O’Donnal chose the downtown site after he spent a few days watching the traffic pass by along Nampa’s 1st Street.
“I was impressed,” he said. “We want to be close to where more people are.”
Peña, who is also the chairman of the Nampa Chamber of Commerce, has helped to facilitate many of the real estate deals along 1st Street, including the lease for 2C Brewing and Mesa, a modern taco joint next door. Both opened in 2019.
“We’re excited to have a national retailer downtown,” Peña told the Statesman. “It’s a positive thing in the redevelopment of downtown Nampa.”
News of the opening was first reported by the Idaho Press.
This story was originally published January 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
