MALONE — With the holiday shopping season a couple of weeks away a new store in the village will hold a soft opening later this week.

Big Lots’ Malone location is scheduled to have its soft opening on Friday Nov. 17, according to Joseph Baker, the store’s assistant manager.

Mayor Andrea M. Dumas confirmed a soft opening was planned for this week during a village board meeting, on Monday evening.

The new Big Lots retail store is located off of Route 11 in the same plaza as Runnings.

Big Lots, a retail company based in Ohio, offers an assortment of items including food, furniture, electronics, home decor, toys and gifts, according to the company’s website.

In February, Sydney Benson, a senior account executive at Carmichael Lynch Relate, a public relations firm out of Minneapolis, Minn., that provides communications services to Big Lots, said a Big Lots will be opening on West Main Street in Malone later this year.

Regionally, Big Lots has stores in Potsdam, Massena and Plattsburgh.

“It’s always nice to get new businesses in town and occupy some of these closed-down stores,” Dumas said, when the opening of the location in Malone was announced in February, “We have heard a lot of good comments about having Big Lots. I know a lot of people travel out of town to go to Big Lots — I think there is one in Massena — so they’re excited to have it here. It’s another opportunity for people to shop and save a little bit of money.”

Look for more coverage of the store’s opening in The Telegram later this week.

The new Big Lots location in Malone is scheduled to have a soft opening on Friday, Nov. 17.