The Sears Hometown Store will move from its current location in the former Crossroads Mall to a new site near First Avenue South and 19th Street this fall.

The move will hopefully be completed by Dec. 1, according to Rick Jones, the owner of the store.

“We’ve been looking all over town since February or March,” he said.

He said the store is being relocated because “there won’t be any room at the new mall complex.” He added that the proposed rent at the mall, which is being redeveloped as a mixed use site called Corridor Plaza, would be too high for his business.

The former Fort Dodge Machine & Supply Inc. building is being renovated to become the new store. The front parking lot is also being rebuilt.

Woodruff Construction, of Fort Dodge, is the general contractor.

The new store will be 6,000 square feet. That’s a little smaller than the current 7,500 square feet it now occupies, according to Jones.

Four people, including Jones, will work at the store.

The Sears Hometown Store offers appliances, tools, lawn and garden equipment, exercise equipment and vacuums. Unlike larger Sears stores, it does not offer clothing or electronics.

The local outlet opened in May 2015 in a space at the mall once occupied by Walgreens and, later, Hancock Fabrics. It debuted just months after a large Sears store, which had been an anchor at the mall since 1964, closed as the company downsized nationwide.