On our master list of known Sears and Kmart stores that will be closing in coming months, one item kind of stands out: one store in Albuquerque plans to cut the size of its store in half and close the Auto Center, renting out the rest of the store. Sears appears to be using the same plan in other markets, including three stores in California.

At least, that’s the speculation of Sacramento Business Journal, which noticed rental brochures for retail spaces that looked like half of local Sears stores.

The addresses matched up, and the stores happen to be in malls where the Sears store had been sold to Seritage Growth Properties, a real estate investment trust that shares many investors with Sears, including manifesto-writing CEO Eddie Lampert.

When Sears decides to close or downsize a store, Seritage is able to rent the unoccupied space out to any other interested retailer. Stores currently subletting or renting from Sears or from its real estate investment trusts include Primark and Whole Foods.

None of this should be news to Consumerist readers, who have known for a few years now that Sears Heritage has been trying to take in roommates to save money. They don’t need all of the retail space, so it makes sense to shrink the store size down and pay less rent to the company’s own real estate trust.

Sears appears to be cutting three local stores in half [business Journal]

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