The building permit has been issued for renovation of the former Sears building at Lambton Mall.
As reported by BlackburnNews.com in March, over $1.9 million is being spent on the vacant two storey structure at 1380 London Rd.
The improvements and renovations are for a new Marshalls/HomeSense store and two other unoccupied commercial retail units covering over 136,000 square feet.
Mississauga-based TJX Canada has not officially announced the new store for Sarnia but it's reportedly set to open in April 2020.
The Sears store closed in January of 2018.
The building permit is the biggest issued by city hall in April. Another $800,000 permit is for renovations to the former Price Chopper grocery store at 1330 Exmouth St., where a new Planet Fitness gym is to open this spring. In all, 49 permits were issued last month with a total value of $8.2 million.
The year-to-date total of $21.5 million is about $2 million behind last year's pace through four months.
After a very slow start, new housing starts rebounded in April with 11 permits being issued for a total of 15 so far. That's still just half the total at this time in 2018.