Hawaii’s first Kmart store, which opened to much fanfare in 1992, will close in late March with a liquidation sale to begin Thursday, the parent company said Tuesday.

Sears Holdings Corp. said it’s closing the Kmart store at 500 N. Nimitz Highway in Iwilei because the property owner decided to end the lease early.

The store employs 141 people, mostly part-time, hourly workers. “Eligible associates will receive severance pay and have the opportunity to apply for positions at Sears or other Kmart stores,” said Sears’ Chicago-based spokesman Howard Riefs.

When the store opened in October of 1992, there was a sea of people awaiting the parting of the doors.

Scott MacKenzie, then promotions director for KSSK-AM 590 and FM 92.3, said he and air personality Marv Clark got stuck in traffic on their way to a Kmart opening-day station promotion.

At the time, KSSK was at 1505 Dillingham Boulevard, less than 1-1/2 miles from Kmart, “and it took an hour and a half because there was so much traffic,” MacKenzie said. “We went down Nimitz and got stuck about half a block down the street. We didn’t move,” he said.

When they did arrive, MacKenzie described the customer response as “massive, unbelievably massive.” The Kmart opening and a Power Rangers appearance were the largest promotions he’s ever been involved with in terms of audience size in his 25-plus years of staging such events.

“They told us afterward that it was ‘America’s biggest Kmart opening ever,’” said MacKenzie, who is now director of marketing for the Summit Media Hawaii group of five radio stations.

The closure of the Iwilei Kmart was part of a small spate of closure announcements Tuesday that included stores in Pocatello, Idaho; Superior, Va.; and Ironwood, Mich.

Sears Holdings recently sold the building and the land under the Iwilei Kmart to New York-based Seritage Growth Properties, a real estate investment company, as part of an agreement in which Sears leases the store from Seritage.

Seritage “contractually has the right to terminate our store’s lease early,” said Riefs. “Seritage informed us that they will be exercising that right, and hence we will be closing the store.”

Seritage officials did not return a call to their New York offices.

The Kmart store is across Sumner Street from the Institute for Human Services’ homeless shelter, and its residents regularly can be seen sitting on the wall bordering the store’s parking lot as well as in other nearby locations. Such was the case early Tuesday afternoon, with a slow but steady trickle of customers entering and exiting the store.

Alfredo Sulit of Kapalama stops at Kmart on his way home from work in the Foreign Trade Zone because of its convenience and has shopped at the store for years, he said.

“If they close down, I don’t know (where I’ll shop),” he said.

For Chris Frazier, originally from South Carolina, the news was familiar.

“All the Kmarts at home have closed,” he said. He frequents the Iwilei Kmart because he lives nearby and it is convenient, he said, holding a bottle of salad dressing and other small items, upon exiting the store.

Once the store closes, he said he will likely go to Walmart.

“We don’t live here,” said Joe Murray of Fairbanks, Alaska, “but we visit (the store) every time we come.” He and wife Flo pick up “odds and ends,” as well as gifts to take home.

The couple’s routine had been to stop in at Kmart, then make a trip to nearby Hilo Hattie, which closed recently due to its ongoing bankruptcy case.

A recent retiree from Makiki, who asked that her name be withheld, was concerned for the store’s regular shoppers because of the number of low-income residents in the general area who need access to “prices within their reach.”

Area residents include low-income occupants of Senior Residence at Iwilei, at 888 Iwilei Road, where monthly rents range from $800 for a one-bedroom unit to $1,180 for a unit with two bedrooms. Kmart is within walking distance from the 15-story building.

Within the same block as Kmart, along Nimitz Highway between Sumner and Pacific streets, is City Mill Co. Ltd.

The more than 116-year-old business has seen its share of neighbors in the area, including Del Monte, the affiliated California Packing Corp. and American Can Co., all while pineapple plantations thrived.

Caro Ai May, City Mill vice president, said the closure of Kmart “bums me out because you need a lot of vibrant business,” and its departure will leave “a huge hole in the neighborhood.”