Sears facility to move from B.R. to Gonzalez

A Sears facility handling home deliveries and online ordering services is relocating from a 75,000-square-foot warehouse in Baton Rouge to a 23,000-square-foot facility in Gonzales, says Mark Hebert of Kurz & Hebert Commercial Real Estate, agent on the deal. The new facility will be located at 810 Hwy. 30, suite F. Picour Brothers Construction is doing the build-out on the new space, Hebert says, which is located next to the Ashley Furniture Homestore. Construction is expected to be complete at the end of January. The vacated warehouse at the intersection of Choctaw Drive and Greenwell Springs Road—which sits on 4.3 acres—will be put on the market soon. Hebert says a price for the property has not yet been determined. Sears is leaving a facility it has occupied since the 1950s, by Hebert’s estimate, and is moving to achieve closer interstate access for its regional deliveries to Lafayette, Hammond and Baton Rouge. Hebert says he’s been working with Sears to find a suitable relocation spot for more than a decade. While Sears owns the Baton Rouge warehouse, in Gonzales it will be a tenant. It has signed a ten-year lease, he says. “It’s part of the existing Ashley building. Ashley had overbuilt that location after Katrina, so they’re actually taking 23,000 square feet in the rear of that building and repurposing it,” Hebert says. —Steve Sanoski