The “for lease” sign is up at the former Shopko property on West 9th Street in Mt. Carmel…and it’s up sooner than expected. In April, the local Shopko and all other locations closed after the corporate headquarters filed bankruptcy. That left Spirit Realty based in Dallas holding the leases on 90 plus Shopko locations including the one in Mt. Carmel. Instead of going thru a lengthy bankruptcy process, Sprit owners simply turned the properties over to their bank in California. Mayor Joe Judge says that then set the wheels in motion for the local site to be put on the market…

Judge said if Spirit owners had instead filed bankruptcy, it would have been a much longer process before the property was made available.