LINCOLN – Area residents will be able to shop at Sears the week before Christmas without having to go to Bangor, the owner of the retail chain’s latest expansion said Tuesday.

Construction workers were due to start laying tile and painting walls inside the 7,300-square-foot retail dealer store being built at 213 West Broadway, near the Briarwood Motel. It is to open on Dec. 17, said owner Peter Lyons.

“I can’t say enough good about the contractors who have been building this,” Lyons said. “They have bent over backwards to get this done. They’ve worked weekends, Sundays. Everything is firing on all cylinders right now.”

Lyons, who owns Lincoln Color Center, plans to move the Color Center’s stoves, dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers to the new building, and expand his flooring and kitchen cabinet offerings at the Color Center at 274 West Broadway, he said.

Already employing four full-time and two part-time workers at the Color Center, Lyons, 48, will hire two full-time and three part-time workers at Sears, he said.

Sears representatives chose the Lincoln businessman over three other applicants to operate a retail dealer store in town.

The pavement, roofing, windows, walls, insulation and utilities are installed at the new building.

Sears, which has 10 dealer stores and five larger, full-line stores in Maine, has had its eye on Lincoln as a location for years, Sears officials have said.

A dealer store typically sells appliances, electronics, lawn and garden equipment and tools – everything but soft goods, such as clothes – to rural communities. Sears has 800 dealer stores nationwide.

If all goes well, Lyons will attend Sears training school beginning Dec. 2, start receiving inventory on Dec. 10 and open by Dec. 17, he said.