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Mall anchor tenant Sears to shutter

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Sears, an anchor tenant at Battlefield Mall for nearly four decades, is closing this spring.

Larry Costello, a spokesman for Sears owner Transform Holdco LLC, said a liquidation sale started this week with a planned mid-April closure date.

"After careful review, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to close the Sears store in Springfield,” reads a company statement, provided by Costello.

Julie Kudlacz, a spokeswoman for Battlefield Mall owner Simon Property Group Inc. (NYSE: SPG), deferred questions to Sears.

The Sears store, according to Greene County assessor records, spans 177,549 square feet and is owned by TF Springfield MO LLC. A Missouri secretary of state filing lists Harold Talisman as the authorized signatory. Talisman, according to his LinkedIn profile, is chief financial officer for ESL Investments Inc., which owns Transform Holdco.

Battlefield Mall, according to Simon.com, spans more than 1.2 million square feet. That means Sears makes up roughly 15% of the mall space.

A 1982 expansion, which included the addition of Sears, doubled the size of the mall, according to Springfield Business Journal archives. Sears previously operated in downtown Springfield, first at the site of the Regal College Station movie theater and then at property where Springfield Exposition Center now operates, said John Sellars, executive director of the History Museum on the Square.

The Sears closure announcement comes on the heels of Battlefield Mall signing clothing retailer H&M to 20,000 square feet across from Old Navy. The mall’s 2018 occupancy rate was 92.1%, SBJ previously reported.

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