Openings & Closings

The Kansas City area’s last Sears closed this year. Here’s what will soon replace it

The old Sears Home & Life store on 6327 W. 119th St. will soon become a hardware store.
The old Sears Home & Life store on 6327 W. 119th St. will soon become a hardware store. jthompson@kcstar.com

After the last Kansas City area Sears closed earlier this year, a popular hardware store is taking over the space.

Westlake Ace Hardware will open in the second quarter of 2024 in the 12,000-square-foot former Sears Home & Life at 6327 W. 119th St. in Overland Park.

Sears, at one time, had hundreds of department stores across the country. Another former location at 97th Street and Metcalf Avenue in Overland Park’s old Metcalf South Shopping Center shuttered in 2017. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2018 amid plummeting sales and mass closings.

When the smaller 119th Street store closed this year, none remained in Kansas or Kansas City.

The new spot will be Westlake Ace’s 31st in the Kansas City area, according to a release from the company.

Westlake opened a store in Olathe this month at 1185 W. Santa Fe St., in an old True Value Hardware. Another spot in Lee’s Summit at 3511 S.W. Market St. is expected to open Friday.

Jenna Thompson
The Kansas City Star
Jenna Thompson covers retail news for The Kansas City Star. A native of Lincoln, Nebraska, she previously reported for the Lincoln Journal Star and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she studied journalism and English.
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