The Tanger Factory Outlet Center is about to become nothing but a memory.

Liz Claiborne Outlet Stores, the lone remaining retailer in business at the former North Lawrence mall, is closing its Lawrence store on Nov. 19, company officials confirmed Wednesday.

A spokeswoman with the New York-based retailer said the women’s clothing store decided not to renew its lease because it was no longer interested in being located in a virtually vacant former mall. The mall became the I-70 Business Center in 2000 when it was bought by a group of area investors.

“The project that the store is part of is no longer going forward as an outlet center, so we decided it didn’t make sense for us to be there any longer,” Dana Stambaugh, a spokeswoman with the company, said.

Liz Claiborne, 1035 N. Third St., was the anchor for the 88,000-square-foot mall when it opened in 1993. Back then, the mall was home to 22 outlet stores and was projected to produce $32 million in annual sales for the economy.

But by 2000, when Greensboro, N.C.-based Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc. sold the mall to a group led by Lawrence businessmen Bo Harris, Samih Staitieh and Douglas County Commissioner Bob Johnson, the mall had 30,000 square feet of vacant space.

When Liz Claiborne vacates the center, the mall will have more than 50,000 square feet of available space. The property’s only tenants are a NCS Pearson facility that grades standardized tests, a driver’s license office for the state and a Kansas Highway Patrol office.

Harris said the loss of Liz Claiborne wasn’t unexpected and also wasn’t entirely bad.

Liz Claiborne outlet stores is closing its North Lawrence location on Nov. 19. Wednesday, a lone shopper exited the store.

“We knew it was coming since we bought the center, so it wasn’t any surprise,” Harris said. “We’re sad to see them leave, but at the same time, the future plans for the center really lend themselves toward more business and office uses.”

The developers hope to lure more businesses like NCS Pearson or other office users who have large demands for parking. Harris said the group hoped the property’s location adjacent to the Kansas Turnpike would make it attractive to office users who have employees in Shawnee, Johnson or Wyandotte counties.

Harris said the project had received strong interest from a variety of office users that would take from 15,000 square feet to more than 40,000 square feet of space. He said the group believed it had landed a major training center for the former mall but the deal fell apart after the 9-11 attacks.

“We had plans completely done and then the opportunity just disappeared,” Harris said.

Liz Claiborne shoppers on Wednesday said they weren’t surprised that the 12,000-square-foot store was slated to close.

“There were never really that many people here when I came,” said Georganne Walters, a Kansas City, Mo., resident who stopped at the store a couple of times a year. “What they said inside (the store) was that it really hurt them when the area stopped being a mall.”

Store employees declined to comment on the closing. It is unknown how many people are employed at the store, and company officials did not respond to a request for the information.

Although Harris said he thought the most likely use for the former mall would be office space, he said the group hadn’t ruled out another retail use.

Harris said the group would consider razing the property and redeveloping it for a big-box tenant if one was interested in the location.

“I don’t think that is real likely, though,” Harris said.

But Tom Moses, the property listing agent with Cohen-Esrey Real Estate Services in Topeka, said the property may attract a big-box tenant because it was one of the few sites in Lawrence that was already zoned for such a use.

He also said he would be contacting grocery store companies to test whether they were interested in the space. He said several developers had mentioned bringing a grocery store to North Lawrence, but none of the plans had materialized.

“Who knows why it hasn’t worked out before, but timing is everything in this business,” Moses said. “Maybe the winds have shifted.”

The Tanger Outlet center in North Lawrence was put up for sale by Greensboro, N.C.-based Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc. in 1998 when this picture was taken. Liz Claiborne Outlet Stores, the center's last retailer, announced Wednesday that it was closing its store in the former mall, which is now called the I-70 Business Center.