The original Kmart building site is no more.

The iconic Garden City store was demolished Thursday, less than two weeks after preparations for the razing began.

Replacing the former department store on the western side of downtown Garden City will be an LA Fitness, which has acquired the property and plans to construct a gym on the site, Kim Dold, the city's Downtown Development Authority director, said.

LA Fitness had informed the city it would take about eight months before the gym could open.

Once constructed, it would join several other LA Fitness facilities in the area, including the two in Livonia, one in Plymouth Township and one in Allen Park. Dold said the gym would most likely look similar to the LA Fitness constructed on Seven Mile west of Middlebelt in Livonia, which opened on the site of a former Farmer Jack grocery store back in 2018.

The building opened as the first Kmart back in 1962. The company spent several decades growing, with thousands of stores located across the country, but has shrunk considerably in the past few years. Michigan currently has just one Kmart, located in Marshall, left operating.

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The development at the site is just the latest former Kmart to see new life in western Wayne County. The former store at Wayne and Cherry Hill in Westland contains a UHaul facility, and the former store on Ann Arbor Road in Plymouth Township has been flattened and will become a new Henry Ford medical center.

The former Kmart at Seven Mile and Farmington in Livonia, which closed nearly three years ago, remains empty.

Contact reporter David Veselenak at dveselenak@hometownlife.com or 734-678-6728. Follow him on Twitter @davidveselenak.