Improvements in the works at Forest Hills Shopping Center

Big changes are taking place at the Forest Hills Shopping Center, and owners of the Corbin complex are hoping it makes for a better experience for patrons.

The Reelz Video store and vapor shop has moved next door to is former location at the center to make way for what is being called the “Forest Hills Design Center” — two retails spaces, merged into one, that will be newly renovated and which will house a larger Sears appliance store, Benjamin Moore paint center and Kitchen Tune-Up.

“We’ve already got the franchisees locked in,” said Kyle Perkins, Forest Hills Center Manager. He also co-owns the shopping center with his mother, Arlene Perkins Lynch. “It’s the Sears store of the future, so when it reopens, it will be under a new format … a design center concept.”

Perkins said the Sears store at Forest Hills is the No. 1 store in its southeastern Kentucky group and simply needed more space. The area it will soon occupy is 18,000 square feet right next to the Kroger store at the shopping center.

“We really want to make it more of a destination for shoppers,” Perkins said. “We are always looking for businesses that draw consumers that can use products and services of other tenants in the center. So, for instance, if a couple comes here and perhaps the husband goes shopping for groceries, his wife can look at appliances, or perhaps the roles are reversed and he is looking at mowers.”

“We are looking to bring as many people on the lot as possible.” Perkins said the new Sears store would feature items not found in its current location, including things like cabinets and countertops. He gave no definite timeline for when the store will be relocated.