Big Lots

Big Lots, the nation's largest retailer offering "brand names at closeout prices," will be leasing 33,000 square feet of the 80,000 square feet once occupied by Ames at the Belknap Mall.

A Fortune 500 company, which reports $3.8 billion in annual sales from 1,400 stores in 45 states, Big lots offers an assortment of brand-name merchandise, including housewares, toys, gifts and furniture, at prices between 20 percent and 40 percent less than conventional discount retailers. Big Lots now operates six stores in New Hampshire, in Goffstown, Claremont. Derry, Portsmouth, Nashua and Plaistow. All stores with the exception of the Derry outlet have furniture departments. Peggy O'Malley, leasing manager of the Flatley Company, which owns the mall, said yesterday the Belmont store "will probably have a furniture department."

O'Malley said Big Lots would reconfigure the space to provide a separate, outside entrance to its store. Construction work has begun in anticipation of opening for business in the summer.

O'Malley said the Flatley Company is actively pursuing tenants for the remaining space in the mall and is near to closing a lease for the remaining portion of the former Ames space with a company that operates a chain of department stores. That space would open onto the mall itself.