Academy Sports + Outdoors planning store at former Marsh
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Texas-based Academy Sports + Outdoors plans to enter the Indianapolis market with a store at a former Marsh Supermarkets location in Westfield. The outdoor and sporting goods retailer received approval to occupy a building at the south end of Village Park Plaza.
Westfield Building Commissioner Tyler Wertenberger told IBJ that a building permit has been issued for Academy Sports + Outdoors, which has 268 stores in 18 states, including 107 locations in Texas.
Fencing has been installed at the front of the store near U.S. 31 and south of East 151st St. in preparation for renovation work. An Academy Sports + Outdoors spokesperson was not able to say when the store is expected to open. However, the city of Westfield announced Dec. 16 that East Greyhound Pass, which runs in front of the store, is scheduled to close for about eight months.
The 73,400-square-foot Westfield store would be the retailer’s fourth location in Indiana and first in the Indianapolis metropolitan area. Academy Sports + Outdoors currently has stores in Evansville, Jeffersonville and Terre Haute.
Academy Sports + Outdoors opened nine stores in 2022 and expects to open 80 to 100 additional locations over the next five years, according to a press release.
The company, which is headquartered in Katy, Texas, focuses on selling sporting and hunting gear, athletic and casual shoes, outdoor clothing, bicycles and fitness equipment. Brands sold at the retailer’s stores include Nike, Adidas, Under Armour, Columbia, Yeti, Drake Waterfowl and Timberland.
The Academy Sports + Outdoors store continues a trend of old Marsh stores being repurposed for new uses. The Westfield store was one of nearly 20 stores closed by Marsh in May 2017.
Florida-based Sun Capital Partners acquired locally based Marsh in 2006 and for years tried to unload the troubled chain before it finally disappeared from the local grocery scene and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, leaving creditors with losses of $340 million.
In June, Denver-based Vasa Fitness announced plans to open a gym inside a former west-side Marsh store at 6965 W. 38th St.
Several other Marsh stores are now used for non-grocery uses. They include a store in Shelbyville that was turned into a preschool; a grocery on East 96th Street in Fishers that’s now a corporate headquarters; and the store at Keystone and Broad Ripple avenues that’s being turned into a new branch for Traders Point Christian Church—which also repurposed a former store in Plainfield for another branch.
The Carmel Clay Public Library temporarily operated at the former Marsh Supermarket at 2140 E. 116th St. during a two-year, $40 million renovation of its main branch, which reopened in October.