Price Busters, a local retailer known for its diverse selection of inexpensive merchandise, for 13 years has grown mostly at smaller shopping centers.

Now the seller of overruns and closeout items is joining more mainstream retailers by opening its first stores at Hawai'i's two largest malls.

Price Busters recently signed a lease to open a store at Pearlridge Center, the state's second-largest mall.

"This is a big boy," said company president Beth Tom. "I think we've grown up."

The Pearlridge Price Busters space is 17,000 square feet, which will become the company's largest store. Tom said she hopes the store will be open by Thanksgiving week, but it could take longer depending on building permit and construction constraints.

Price Busters also signed a lease to open a small temporary store at Ala Moana Center from November to January that will feature holiday gift merchandise. The Ala Moana store will be 4,200 square feet on the bottom level of the mall near Center Stage.

Tom said she has sought a longer-term lease for a larger space at the state's largest mall for the past few years, but hasn't been able to come to terms. "We got very close ... but it didn't work out," she said. "We're real excited about the (seasonal store) location. It'll be a great test."

Some retail industry experts said it's unusual for top malls to make prime or large spaces available to low-end retailers like dollar stores, making the Price Busters move a coup of sorts.

Price Busters was established in 1992 as an outgrowth of E.R.T. Sales of Hawaii Inc., a wholesale custom jewelry and hair-accessory company Tom founded in 1985 to supply major retailers including department stores.

The first retail Price Busters store opened at Kaneohe Bay Shopping Center, and Price Busters expanded into a chain that at one time had more than 10 stores, including locations at Waimanalo Town Center, Stadium Mall and Windward Mall that have since been closed.

Today, Price Busters has six locations: Kalihi, Kailua, downtown, Hawai'i Kai, Pearl Highlands Center in Pearl City and Mililani Town Center, its most recent store, which opened two years ago.

In addition to new Price Busters locations at Ala Moana and Pearlridge, the retailer plans to return to Windward Mall with a 3,000-square-foot holiday-season store scheduled to operate from late September through December.

Roger Lyons, vice president of retail services for local real-estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis Hawaii Inc., said Price Busters has been ambitious and successful in moving up the real-estate chain with higher-quality locations.

"There are some local retailers who have done a great job of competing and growing in the Hawai'i market, and Price Busters is one of them," he said.

For the past couple of years, Tom has been trying to lease some of the space vacated by J.C. Penney Co. at Pearlridge and Ala Moana after the department store pulled out of Hawai'i in early 2003.

Price Busters leased the Pearlridge space from the owner of INspiration Furniture, a tenant at Pearlridge who bought the J.C. Penney space at the center from a Florida company that had leased the space to the department store.

The Ala Moana Price Busters will occupy space being vacated by Borders Express after rival Barnes & Noble agreed to open a 26,000-square-foot store in former J.C. Penney space.