photo by: AP File Photo

This photo taken Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, shows a Dick's Sporting Goods sign at a store in Miami. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

Dick’s Sporting Goods has temporarily closed its store in Lawrence, but there are no signs that it has made a decision to leave the Lawrence market.

Rather, signs on the front door of the big box retailer at 27th and Iowa streets state the building is closed for “deep cleaning.”

The signs don’t say whether the store was a site of a COVID-19 outbreak, and the Douglas County Health Department does not release the location of outbreaks in most situations. An attempt to reach a representative of the Lawrence store wasn’t immediately successful.

But the signs on the store do state the cleaning is to ensure “the safety of our athletes.” The signs don’t provide a specific date for when the store will reopen, but rather say that the building will reopen “once the store has been sanitized.”

The Journal-World went to the store Thursday afternoon after receiving questions about whether the store had decided to close its Lawrence location amid the economic downturn. Dick’s Sporting Goods, however, hasn’t announced any permanent store closings recently, and Wall Street analysts actually have been touting that the retailer is likely to post stronger-than-expected financial results later this month.

Trade journals that cover the sporting goods industry have been reporting that sporting goods retailers have seen high demand for a variety of bigger-ticket, hard-good items like bicycles, golf clubs, fishing gear and exercise equipment.