Target sets opening date, preps new look for Bridgehampton store replacing Kmart

Target is attempting to fill a void that was left in the Hamptons after the closing of a Kmart — the discounter’s last full-size store in the mainland United States — in 2024.

With a grand opening set for Oct. 11 in Kmart’s former digs in Bridgehampton, Target’s new store will look somewhat different from the retailer’s other outlets, given the Town of Southampton’s strict zoning and building code requirements and the aesthetic expectations of Hamptons residents and officials, Target officials said.

“The Hamptons has to have a certain feel and really respecting that and working with [Southampton] and sitting down with them to understand signage was a big thing. … So, it feels very inviting, and feels like you’re kind of coming home,” said Genevieve McJilton, senior project manager of construction for Target.

On Thursday morning, Plainview-based general contractor EW Howell Construction Group “turned over the store” to about 30 Target employees who will be among the crew stocking shelves with merchandise, assembling fixtures and taking on other tasks to prepare the store for its opening, she said.

A peek inside and outside the store showed that its look will vary in some ways from the majority of Target’s stores.

Instead of the retailer’s signature shade of red for its store names and bullseye logo , the Bridgehampton store's sign and logo are white on a gray background.

“The Planning Board requested with the pre-submission process that the Target sign be white and the applicant was amenable as their site in Medford has a white sign,” Clare P. Shea, Southampton's assistant town planning director, said in an email Thursday.

Lit signs are not permitted in the shopping center, so Target’s will be lit from overhead, said Ken McQuade, a principal architect for store design at Target.

The large, red round bollards typically in front of Target stores are gray in Bridgehampton.

“We agreed to make those gray because the town didn’t want it to feel like there was too much branding, using too much red on the outside. So, we changed those to gray, which is something we don’t normally do, which is kind of fun,” McQuade said.

Focusing on the image of the “classic Hamptons house,” Target voluntarily brought aspects of the area’s aesthetics to the store, among them Adirondack chairs and trellises outside the store; shake siding covering several inside walls; fitting rooms with cabana-like features, such as shiplap siding and doors with mirrors designed to look like portholes; coastal artwork; and wicker-encased ceiling light fixtures, company officials said.

The brick wall on the front of the store was opened up with a series of glass windows.

“And this was kind of, again, another nod to the Hamptons, the beach, and kind of a more relaxed feel and trying to make people feel more cozy, more inviting is what we were trying to do here,” McJilton said.

Long-desired location

Minneapolis-based Target Corp. has more than 2,000 stores, including 20 open on Long Island.

The new store, which will be Target's farthest east on Long Island, will open at 2044 Montauk Hwy. in Bridgehampton Commons, a shopping center owned by Kimco Realty Corp., a real estate investment trust in Jericho.

The store will have a CVS and Starbucks, and carry groceries, home goods, clothing, shoes, health and beauty items and other products.

The store will eventually employ about 140 to 150 workers, McQuade said.

Target signed a lease for the Bridgehampton space in 2021, McJilton said.

But the Hamptons has been a desired market for Target “for years, if not decades,” said Brandt Uthus, regional real estate director for Target.

“I think what makes the Hamptons, South Fork challenging, is really the real estate availability. … So, this Kmart really was the only box that was available that would be big enough for us, and so it required a lot of patience on our end to wait it out and understand and recognize what was going on with Kmart,” he said.

At 91,036 square feet, Target’s Bridgehampton location is smaller than the retailer's typical stores, which average about 125,000 square feet, but it’s not a small-format store.

Locals: Kmart fulfilled a need

The Hamptons is a collection of tony beach communities in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton that are dotted by mom-and-pop shops and high-end boutiques on main streets.

The Kmart store closed in October 2024 after 25 years in operation, ending an era for a once-dominant discount retailer.

The closing left Kmart with one small store in mainland United States — in Miami. There is also a store in Guam and another in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

While thousands of Kmarts closed over decades, the Bridgehampton store was able to hang on because it was without competition and fulfilled a need in the Hamptons for wealthy tourists, blue-collar service workers and everyone in between, locals have said.

The closest Walmart is nearly 25 miles away in Riverhead, outside the Hamptons. The closest Target is about 23 miles away, also in Riverhead.

There aren’t more big-box stores in Southampton because the town discourages their development "to maintain the look and feel of the communities,” then-Southampton Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni, who was the council’s liaison for Bridgehampton, told Newsday in 2024.

The current liaison, Councilman Thomas Neely, could not be immediately reached for comment Thursday.