Fantastic Holdings says it will close the business over the next six months.

Group CEO retail Debra Singh said the company’s immediate priority was its employees. It hopes to redeploy about 25 of the 95 current staff at the Keswick site within Fantastic Holdings’ other operations.

“While some redundancies are unavoidable, we will be working to ensure as many employees as possible are redeployed within the group,” Singh said in a statement to the ASX.

Fantastic Holdings describes itself as Australia’s third-largest furniture retailer by sales volume, and operates more than 126 stores across the country, including the Fantastic Furniture and Plush brands.

The Le Cornu site on Anzac Highway at Keswick, which it leases, has been for sale since late 2015. In its ASX statement, Fantastic Holdings said potential buyers of the site were “understood to be considering various redevelopment options”.

It added that “in light of the likely disruption at the Keswick site, and in consideration of the company’s brand strategies, Fantastic Holdings has determined that it will now be investing in its core brands in the South Australian market”.

Trading at Le Cornu has deteriorated in the past financial year, with losses of around $4 million.

Singh said the  Le Cornu business had been an icon in the Adelaide retail market for decades, “largely due to the committed, dedicated, passionate people in the business”.

“Like us, they will be proud of the mark that Le Cornu has made in South Australia.”

The iconic Adelaide store has a history dating back to 1861, when Philip Joshua Le Cornu, who had migrated to South Australia from Jersey in the Channel Islands, established a “cabinet manufactory” operation on O’Connell Street in North Adelaide, while also running a sideline business as an undertaker and coffin maker.

By 1924, Le Cornu was operating a factory that supplied furniture state-wide. It began direct sales to the public in 1954, expanded interstate to Darwin in 1966, and bought the old Chrysler car assembly plant at Keswick to further increase its operations in 1973.

According to the Le Cornu website, when then premier Don Dunstan opened the new Keswick store a year later, “it was the world’s largest self-service furniture warehouse/showroom and featured childcare facilities, a restaurant and 200 fully decorated rooms”.

The North Adelaide store was closed in 1989, the same year then Premier John Bannon opened a new expansion at Keswick. Fantastic Holdings bought Le Cornu for $1.3 million in 2008, and the brand relaunched with a new look in 2011.

Daniel Gannon, SA executive director of the Property Council of Australia, described the Keswick Le Cornu site as “a highly attractive parcel of inner-metropolitan land”.

“Ashford Hospital is located across the road from the site, which could mean that aged care or retirement living become attractive development options, combined with residential, commercial and retail offerings.”

He said zoning changes being considered by the State Government and several inner-metropolitan councils would make way for mixed-use development along transport corridors such as Anzac Highway.

-with AAP