Middletown Big Lots closing, moving across the street

There are 28 Big Lots locations within 50 miles from the Middletown area. Here are the closest:

7779 Tylersville Road

West Chester

729 E. Main St.

Lebanon

4613 Dixie Highway

Fairfield

1220 E. Central Ave.

Miamisburg

SOURCE: Big Lots

While the Middletown Big Lots is only moving down and across the street, city officials and realtors believe it shows a giant step in the city’s economic progress.

The Big Lots, located in the Park East Plaza, plans to close that store and move into a larger space in the former Kmart on Roosevelt Boulevard, city officials said. Robert Lang, vice president of real estate for Kamin Reality, the Pittsburgh-based company that owns the Eastgate Plaza, said Big Lots will occupy about one-third of the space in the former Kmart.

Representatives from Big Lots were unavailable to comment Monday, and it remains unclear what will become of the discount store’s space in the Park East Plaza.

The Tractor Supply Co. opened in a 27,776-square-foot space in the plaza on Aug. 31, and Big Lots is expected to occupy a 33,721-square-foot space, said Marty Kohler, the city’s planning director. The developers hope to lease the other 22,683-square-foot section of the Kmart property and another space in the plaza that formerly housed BW3s and later Club Roosevelt, a private nightclub, years ago.

He said no tenants have signed leases on either property.

Once Tractor Supply Co. signed a lease, Lang said it signaled it was time to “spruce up the place a little bit.” The old Kmart facade was replaced and the inside of the building was painted. Workers also are scheduled to renovate the former BW3s property, Lang said.

He believes the recent growth shows the shopping plaza has good visibility and “a life and a future.”

Kohler said the development in the plaza is a “very positive sign” for the city and illustrates that investors are being “much more aggressive.”

Kmart, which opened in 1978, closed the 84,180-square-foot store in November 2009 and the property has been vacant since, Kohler said.

Tractor Supply Co. and Big Lots will join Save-A-Lot, Mane Event Hair, Skin and Nails, Golden Dragon Restaurant, Check Into Cash, and New York Fashions in the shopping plaza.