Sears appliance showroom planned for Ala Moana

Sears is planning a homecoming of sorts at Ala Moana Center, where the retailer closed a store in 2013 after spending more than 50 years at Hawaii’s largest shopping mall.

The anticipated new store isn’t a full-line department store, but a showroom for appliances that Sears has developed in many mainland metropolitan areas.

Sears Hometown &Outlet Stores Inc., a company that operates most appliance showroom stores and is separate from the company that owns Sears department stores, did not respond to requests for information Wednesday.

Ala Moana’s owner said it was unable to comment, according to representative Sara Mayko with public relations firm Stryker Weiner &Yokota.

But some Sears employees in Hawaii have been informed of the plan that will allow some of them to return to work at Ala Moana where 327 workers lost their jobs at the longtime flagship Sears store that opened in 1959 as the mall’s initial anchor tenant.

Local retail real estate consultant Stephany Sofos said adding a Sears appliance showroom to Ala Moana will add another reason for residents to visit the mall and provide more choices for consumers who have limited options for buying major appliances in urban Honolulu.

“It’s a hassle to drive 30 miles to buy a fridge,” she said.

The new Sears store, according to employees, is slated to take some of the space in the three-story former Nordstrom building fronting Kapiolani Boulevard that is being cut up into spaces for Target and a discount Saks outlet called OFF 5th.

Sofos said the reuse of this space provides good attractions for local consumers and keeps the mall with a balance of shops targeting residents and visitors.

The old Nordstrom space was built as part of a new mauka wing at the mall that opened in 2008. Then last year Nordstrom moved into a new $570 million Ewa wing that was created as the result of Sears closing its department store and selling its lease to Ala Moana owner General Growth Properties Inc. for $250 million.

It’s unclear how big the envisioned new Sears store would be. Sears Hometown said in its most recent annual report that its 50 existing appliance showrooms are 5,000 square feet on average. However, that’s for mainly older stores that the company acquired in 2012 from Sears Holdings Corp., the owner of Sears department stores.

Sears Hometown, according to company financial reports, has closed many of the roughly 1,240 specialty stores it initially acquired from Sears Holdings, but said it looks for opportunities to open new stores, including in trade areas where Sears Holdings closed full-line department stores.

“Our Home Appliance Showrooms include appealing display floors in metropolitan trade areas where we compete with big-box retailers by offering a compelling service model, a wide assortment of brand-name home appliances, significant online and multi-channel capabilities, and convenient locations,” the company said in its most recent annual report. “We differentiate ourselves from our competitors by providing our customers with a consultative and educational purchase experience. To accommodate the lifestyles of our metropolitan customers, we also provide after-hours showings by appointment.”

SOFOS said Sears has a good reputation for customer service for appliances. “The Sears salespeople are really good,” she said. “I always buy my appliances at Sears because of the service.”

Sears Hometown, which owns some of its stores and franchises others, receives about 80 percent of its inventory from Sears Holdings.

Sears Holdings mainly operates Sears department stores and Kmart stores, but last year also entered the appliance showroom market with a 10,000-square-foot store in Fort Collins, Colo. The company touted that Sears is the only retailer that sells all of the 10 top appliance brands, and said its new store features a 122-inch interactive digital display called the “Kitchen Creator” that lets customers see how appliances will look in a full-scale kitchen.

Howard Riefs, a Sears Holdings spokesman, said in an email that the appliance store planned for Ala Moana will not be operated by Sears Holdings.