Hobby Lobby to open second LI store

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Hobby Lobby, the popular national crafts and home decor chain, is opening another Long Island store.

The Oklahoma City-based retailer leased the 46,400-square-foot former Pathmark store in the Kohl’s shopping center at 2060 Sunrise Highway in Bay Shore. It will be the second Long Island location for Hobby Lobby, following one in Commack that opened three months ago.

Hobby Lobby’s 43,000-square-foot Commack location in King Kullen Plaza had been occupied by Sports Authority, which closed last year as part of the company’s bankruptcy.

After the Bay Shore Pathmark store closed in 2015, its lease was sold back to the shopping center’s landlord Jericho-based Saxon Sunrise Realty. The new Hobby Lobby store is currently under construction and the company is hoping to open by the end of this year or early next year, bringing 35 to 50 jobs.

Hobby Lobby Stores, the largest privately owned arts and crafts retailer in the country, has more than 700 locations in 47 states. It began in 1970 as a miniature picture frame company called Greco and became Hobby Lobby after founder David Green moved the business from his garage to a 300- square-foot retail space in Oklahoma City in 1972. The company now occupies a 3.4 million-square-foot manufacturing, distribution and office complex in Oklahoma City and has offices in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China. The chain’s annual revenue exceeds $3 billion, according to published reports.

Each Hobby Lobby store offers more than 70,000 crafting and home decor products including floral, fabric, needle art, custom framing, baskets, home accents, wearable art, wedding supplies, arts and crafts, jewelry making, scrapbooking and paper crafting supplies.

The chain has been exploring many big-box retail locations here and is planning on opening “several” stores on Long Island, according to its communications coordinator.

Neil Schorr and Rachel Butiu of Realty Insight Group represented Hobby Lobby and Jeremy Isaacs of Ripco Real Estate represented the landlord, Saxon Sunrise Realty, in the Bay Shore lease transaction.