A gym and a hardware store are filling the space left empty by Kmart in the Pike Creek shopping center on Limestone Road.
According to leasing materials from the property’s developer Regency Centers, Edge Fitness will take roughly half of the former Kmart for its second Delaware location. A family-owned hardware store called Pike Creek Community Hardware will take the other half.
The Pike Creek shopping center’s Kmart closed in 2019. It has been vacant ever since.
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In 2020, Regency Centers filed a plan that called for a portion of the Kmart to be demolished. Under the plan, a convenience store with gas pumps, an auto service center and a retail pad site would be built in the shopping center’s parking lot.
That plan never advanced past the exploratory stage. The following year, Regency Centers started to prepare to divide the Kmart building.
Work began earlier this year on Pike Creek Community Hardware. The store appears mostly complete from the exterior, but an employee at another community hardware location said an opening date hasn’t been set. The store posted job advertisements as early as April.
Pike Creek Community Hardware will be the fourth store under the Community Hardware name. There are Community Hardware stores in Smyrna, Laurel and Pennsville, New Jersey, the first of which opened in 2008.
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The Pike Creek location will be the second Edge Fitness in Delaware, joining their Christiana gym. Its entrance will be to the left of Pike Creek Community Hardware if looking at the building from the parking lot. Construction has not started.
Gyms have become frequent replacements for shuttered big-box retailers. Planet Fitness has replaced the likes of Restoration Hardware, Steinmart and Best Buy in Christiana and the Wilmington area.
By comparison Edge is a larger gym with more amenities. It’s among the largest draws at the Christiana Fashion Center.
Tractor Supply Co. plans for Governors Square Kmart withdrawn
Plans for a Tractor Supply Co. in part of the former Kmart in Bear’s Governors Square were withdrawn in February. Tractor Supply Co. spokesperson Darias Collins wrote in an email plans for a new store in Governors Square “are not solidified.”
The space has been vacant since Kmart closed in 2019.
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Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @holveck_brandon.
