[1/4/05] Buyers are being sought once again for the vacant Kmart building on Pemberton Boulevard after a deal for the property stalled.

“We had a contract on it, but they needed an extension,” said Pam Beard of BrokerSouth GMAC Real Estate.

Discussions have continued with the potential buyer, whom Beard did not name, but in the meantime, the building is back on the market.

The asking price for the 87,000-square-foot building is $2.75 million, Beard said.

“We are still actively trying to get someone in there,” Beard said.

Kmart opened the store on Pemberton Boulevard in July 1991. The store expanded in 1999 to house a grocery store and was renamed Big Kmart.

The City of Vicksburg helped bring Kmart to Vicksburg by floating a $275,000 bond and using tax increment financing to help with the infrastructure development around the store.

The store closed in 2002. The national company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the Vicksburg store was among 284 closed in a national downsizing.

Jerome Pearlman & Faith Trustees, owners of the Vicksburg property, have been trying to sell it since the closure. Biloxi, Hattiesburg, Gautier, Laurel and Pascagoula were the other Mississippi cities that lost Kmarts.