Santa Monica Sears owner plans creative office conversion

The cash registers at the Santa Monica Sears will be ringing up the store’s final sales in April.

The 100,600-square-foot store at 302 Colorado Avenue will close its doors to make way for a mixed-use creative office and retail development, Santa Monica Daily Press reported.

Seritage Growth Properties, the real estate investment trust set up by distressed Sears Holdings Corporation, owns the building, which first opened in 1947 and was declared a landmark in 2004. The Sears’ REIT presented its adaptive reuse plan for the site to the city’s Landmarks Commission in late 2016.

A 100,000-square-foot Class A office building has already been proposed on the site, with a construction start date in December, CoStar shows.

Seritage was set up in 2015 by CEO Eddie Lampert to help the troubled retailer shore up finances. Terms of the deal gave Seritage the right to end some of Sears’ leases and find new uses for its properties.

Seritage’s portfolio includes 224 wholly-owned Sears and Kmart locations and 31 joint venture investments with General Growth Properties, Simon Property Group and Macerich that are master-leased to Sears Holdings.

The Santa Monica store will begin its liquidation sale January 27. [SMDP] — Subrina Hudson