St. Thomas’ Lockhart Gardens Kmart will close its doors for good Aug. 16 — eight days after St. Croix’s Sunny Isles Kmart is set to shut down, a company representative said Monday.

The closure follows six years of Kmart shutdowns since Illinois-based TransformCo bought Kmart’s parent company, Sears Holdings, in a bankruptcy sale in 2019.

Rumors had long swirled about an impending closure of the Charlotte Amalie store, known locally as the little Kmart. There were no immediate plans to close the big Kmart at the Tutu Park Mall, according to an Illinois-based manager with TransformCo’s People Ops department.

The company representative was unsure how many employees worked at the Lockhart Gardens store and the store’s People Ops manager declined to comment, referring questions to TransformCo headquarters. Messages sent to TransformCo’s media relations department were not immediately returned Monday.

With four Kmarts in the territory two years ago, the Virgin Islands had the last of the retailer’s remaining clusters of stores before Frederiksted’s Sunshine Mall Kmart closed permanently in 2023. The Labor Department estimated 75 people worked at the Sunshine Mall Kmart.

The company founded in 1899 was a $1 billion retail juggernaut by the 1960s. Kmart opened 271 stores in 1976 alone. In the 1990s, Kmart was estimated to have more than 2,100 locations globally. It acquired other brands like Walden Book Company, Home Centers of America, The Sports Authority, Borders, and a controlling interest in OfficeMax. Kmart partnered with Martha Stewart in 1987 and other brand influencers like Kathy Ireland and Sesame Street creators Children’s Television Workshop through the 1990s. After gaining $4.7 billion in financing in 1996, the company opened or converted 1,245 Big Kmart stores in 1998.

The Virgin Islands stores were opened in 1993 and 1994.

In 2002, Kmart filed for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code and announced the closing of 283 stores.

When the Sunny Isles and Lockhart Gardens stores close, just three Kmarts will remain open: the Tutu Park Mall, a store in Guam, and a small Kmart Garden Center in Miami, Florida.