NASHUA – Today is your last chance to fill a shopping cart with perhaps the widest array of discounted merchandise. Building 19 will shut the doors of its Amherst Street store by nightfall.

After 16 years of selling “Good stuff … cheap” – as the company’s motto goes – Building 19 will say goodbye to Nashua, for now at least.

The chain store couldn’t come to terms on its lease with the property owner, AS-VR Realty LLC in Londonderry. It announced last month that it would have sales to clear merchandise for when the last day finally arrived.

The last day has arrived. The store will shut its doors tonight at 9, or maybe sooner, depending on how things go during the day.

Longtime and new patrons have a final opportunity to load up on useful and kitschy products, the trademark of Building 19. The store offers everything from discounted mattresses to furniture, books, toys and knickknacks you wouldn’t find most anywhere else.

Chain founder Jerry Ellis said nothing has been planned yet, but Building 19 hopes to open another store in southern New Hampshire in the future.

“It’s sad,” Ellis said. “It’s much more fun to open a store than close one.”

About 30 employees will be laid off because the company is unable to relocate them, Building 19 officials have said.

Known for its witty advertisements – often featuring sarcastic spoofs of Ellis, free coffee with “free fake cream” and amusing in-house signs promoting merchandise – Building 19 opened in Nashua in 1995.

It’s unknown what retail store will replace Building 19. No development proposal has been submitted to the city planning department for the location.

Walmart famously lost its bid to open a store at the 420 Amherst St. location in 2006 – while Building 19 still had a lease there.

Residents and environmental groups loudly complained that the footprint of the proposed 140,000-square-foot Walmart store would exceed the boundaries of the property, potentially causing traffic jams and harming the nearby Pennichuck aquifer, part of the city’s drinking water supply. The city Planning Board agreed, and rejected the Walmart proposal. Building 19 continued its lease, until today.

“Our customers are nice people,” Ellis said. “I enjoyed taking their money, and I hope they enjoyed shopping with us.”

Building 19 still has a store in Manchester, eight outlets in Massachusetts and two in Rhode Island.

Albert McKeon can be reached at 594-5832 or amckeon@nashuatelegraph.com.