Bridgehampton Kmart, last full-size store in chain in U.S., closes for last time

The last full-size Kmart store in the United States, located in Bridgehampton, closed its doors and shut the lights for the final time on Sunday.

A sign on the front door of the Montauk Highway store read “Thank you, to the Bridgehampton community, for years of patronage and support. All good things … .”

Newsday reported last month that the store, part of the once-retail giant, was set to close on Oct. 20 after about 25 years at the location. The closure now leaves one small Kmart store in the United States, in Miami. There are also a handful of locations in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Locals previously told Newsday that a lack of big-box store competition contributed to the Bridgehampton store’s longevity, at a time when other Kmart locations around the country were closing. 

At its peak, Kmart had more than 2,000 locations in the United States. It was one of the nation’s largest discount retail chains in the early 1990s.

The store was known for its “Blue Light Specials” directed at in-store customers. The flashing blue lights were followed by unadvertised sales of certain items.

Kimco Realty Corp., a real estate investment trust in Jericho, owns the Bridgehampton Commons shopping center, where the store was located. Kimco spokeswoman Jennifer Maisch declined to comment.

Kmart and sister chain Sears are owned by Transformco, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The Bridgehampton Kmart opened its doors in 1999, occupying the nearly 90,000-square-foot store, which was the largest tenant in the shopping center. It took over the retail space left vacant by Caldor, a now-defunct discount retailer that filed for bankruptcy protection in 1995.

Kmart struggled to compete with other retail stores and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002. It filed again for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2018, and its assets were purchased for $5.2 billion in 2019 by Transformco, Newsday reported. 

The Sayville Kmart closure in 2020 left Bridgehampton as the final store on Long Island. 

With Tory N. Parrish