Sears is coming back to Macon, although in much smaller fashion.

The national retailer closed its 200,000-square-foot Macon Mall store in April 2012, along with 79 other stores around the country.

The new 11,000-square-foot business, called Sears Hometown Store, is scheduled to open in the next couple of weeks on Billy Williamson Drive in the Eisenhower Crossing shopping center next to PetSmart.

Kenny Johnson, who will be operating the store, said he has an agreement with the national retailer to open here.

“Sears is very excited about this,” Johnson said Monday. Many of the cities that lost full-line Sears stores last year have since opened, or are planning to open, smaller Sears Hometown Stores.

Johnson said his store will not offer soft goods, such as sheets and linens, but will sell tools, hardware, appliances, lawn and garden supplies, and mattresses.

Johnson said he’ll still be able to offer all goods sold by Sears. “Anything that a full-line store offers, we can order it here for pick-up or ship to your house,” he said.

Johnson was previously a district manager at SleepMed Inc. in Macon. He said he was looking for something else to do and opening up a Sears Hometown Store was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

“I saw it on a website while looking for another business to do ... when I called Sears, they were very excited about coming back to Macon,” he said.

There are more than 900 Sears Hometown Stores throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Guam, and the stores carry the trademark Sears brands such as Craftsman, Kenmore and Diehard.

Sears Hometown Stores, which are locally owned and operated, were developed nearly 20 years ago to serve customers in small cities that didn’t have a Sears, according to the company’s website.