Developers are proposing a new H Mart supermarket at a former Sears department store at NorthTown Mall at 4750 N. Division.

Algona, Washington-based Lemond Spokane Corp. filed a predevelopment application to revamp the 163,000-square-foot space with the city of Spokane on Nov. 10. The project is valued at $8 million.

Preliminary site plans call for H Mart, a Fort Lee, New Jersey-based Asian supermarket chain, to develop the first floor into a supermarket, featuring a Korean beauty and cosmetics area, warehouse space, and a separate wholesale grocery market. Five food court restaurants, a pub, a cafe and bakery, and a seating area are envisioned on the second floor. No restaurant tenants have been named yet.

Lemond Spokane Corp. is planning to purchase the long-vacant Sears store, in addition to half of a parking garage on the west side of the building and the entire parking garage on the east side, says Kenneth Son, a representative of Lemond Spokane Corp.

The company expects to purchase those properties from current owner TF Spokane LLC, of Hoffman Estates, Illinois, by December. Son declines to disclose the expected purchase price.

The former Sears store is located on the south side of the mall, with an entrance from Wellesley Avenue. It's connected to two parking garages through skywalk access. Early design plans show an additional skywalk is proposed from the east garage to the mall.

Upon completion of the property purchase, Son says construction of the new H Mart will begin and wrap up by December 2027. A contractor, architect, and engineer haven't been chosen yet, he adds.

The Sears department store at NorthTown Mall closed in 2019 due to a weak retail environment, Sears parent company Transform SR Brands LLC, which does business as TransformCo, announced in a press release at the time. 

H Mart operates 10 locations on Washington’s West Side and more than 100 locations in total throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, according to the company’s website.

Last year, an Ashley Store & Outlet retailer redeveloped the former Macy's department store at NorthTown Mall into a three-story furniture store, the Journal previously reported. Broad River Retail, the South Carolina-based Ashley licensee behind the store, spent over seven figures developing the 101,000-square-foot space into one of the largest Ashley locations in the world.