Mountain View’s longstanding Kohl’s store is set to close this week, making it the final retail outpost to shutter in a shopping center where the Los Altos School District hopes to build a new school.

The department store, located at 350 Showers Drive, is scheduled to close on Saturday, Jan. 18, according to a sign posted on the front door. The remaining clothes and other assorted items in the store are currently on sale.

The location was included on a list of 27 “underperforming stores” nationwide that Kohl’s announced last week that it planned to close by April. Nine other Kohl’s locations in California were also on the list, including one in Pleasanton and another in Fremont.

A Kohl’s media representative would not comment on the closure, beyond the information in their press release, including declining to confirm the store’s closing date.

While Kohl’s cited business performance when announcing the store’s closure, it was also nearing the end of the time it could stay in its current location.

The building is within an 11.7-acre parcel of land in the San Antonio shopping center that the Los Altos School District bought in 2019 with plans to build a new school. More than five years later, the school district hopes to soon get that project underway.

Kohl’s has been paying the Los Altos School District $50,000 per month in rent and its lease will expire at the end of March, said Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Erik Walukiewicz.

Other than Kohl’s, the only tenant remaining on the school district’s property, which is often called the “10th school site,” is the Community Services Agency. The Mountain View-based nonprofit is renting the former home of a JoAnn fabrics store for $1 per year while its headquarters on Stierlin Road is renovated, Walukiewicz said.

The shopping center was formerly home to an array of businesses, including a 24 Hour Fitness and GameStop, which have left over the past five years.

The school district made plans for Kohl’s and CSA to move out by the end of March, because it hoped to start demolition and construction sometime in 2025, Walukiewicz said. However, he stressed that no date has actually been set for when that work will begin.

The school board has not yet decided what kind of campus to build or which school to place on the 10th site. District officials have signalled interest in moving Bullis Charter School to the new campus, but Bullis officials have made it clear that they are opposed to that idea.

In the coming months, Walukiewicz said that the school board plans to meet to discuss making decisions about the 10th site. The district successfully passed a $350 million bond measure in November’s election, which it intends to partially use to fund the new school construction.

In the press release announcing the store closure, Kohl’s said that store associates were “offered a competitive severance package or the ability to apply to other open roles at Kohl’s.”

On a recent afternoon, shoppers browsed the remaining racks, with signs advertising steep discounts on the remaining merchandise. One of the shoppers told a Voice reporter that she and her coworker had heard about the sale and were there to buy some clothes.

“Everything is on sale and this is an opportunity to clear it out so a school can come in,” she said. “We get some clothes out of it.”