Posted on 09/16/2021 4:05:17 PM PDT by American Number 181269513
The last Sears department store located in the retailer’s home state of Illinois is getting ready to close its doors for good.
The shop, located in Simon Property Group’s Woodfield Mall, is scheduled to shutter on Nov. 14, the company confirmed to CNBC.
A spokesman for the department store chain’s parent company, Transformco, said it will look for ways to revive the space with another tenant because it also manages the real estate.
“This is part of the company’s strategy to unlock the value of the real estate and pursue the highest and best use for the benefit of the local community,” Transformco said in a statement.
Sears Holdings, which also owned Kmart, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 2018. Transformco later acquired Sears out of bankruptcy and has since closed dozens of the remaining Sears and Kmart locations across the United States.
Kmart’s last location in Manhattan recently shut. It will be replaced by a Wegmans grocery store.
A spokesperson for Transformco declined to confirm how many Sears and Kmart stores are still open.
The company’s websites list 35 Sears locations, including the one at Woodfield Mall, and 22 Kmart stores.
Sears was founded in Chicago in the 1890s. Its business blossomed through much of the 20th century, as it sold everything from homes to apparel. Sears was once the largest retailer in the nation, boasting thousands of stores.
The company had about 700 stores, many of them barren of goods, when it filed for bankruptcy protection.
Scott Carr, president of Transformco’s real estate division, said in a statement that the company plans to maximize the value of the Woodfield Mall property through a redevelopment.
LOL
I didn’t appreciate Sears taking weeks to process catalog orders, at least as I remember it. I realize that it wasn’t the internet age, but still, no need to take that long, in most cases. They were just lazy and wanted to get their orders bunched up to save a few bucks in shipping.
I remember long rows of every kind and speed of Kodak film on the rack at K-Mart. Two-day film processing! Kodak was king of everyday picture-taking.
They just didn’t have the vision to see what was coming.
me too
I read the “Reminisce” magazines, and in an article about old catalogs that picture appeared. I think somebody was pranking the editors.
They did have people with vision. The Sears Wishbook project here in Denver was the first of its kind to go web-based. What killed it, and I am being dead serious, was the underqualified Affirmative Action executives they hired during that period in the 1990’s.
Their stubborn refusal to accept Visa/MC/Amex was the beginning of their demise long before Amazon came around.
Back in the day when we used to go to the mall to shop I would hang out in the Craftsman section in Sears while my wife and daughters shopped. Haven’t been to a mall in years now other than to the department stores. The malls in my area are thug draws, so not worth the risk. The only Sears left in my area is a small store where you can order appliances and get them serviced, about 25 miles from home.
They closed a bunch of the Ace Hardware stores around Chicago too. Still some left though.
My wife has a J.C. Penney catalog from the late ‘70s. It’s fun to look at it every now and then. The toy section has Star Wars toys. Imagine how much THOSE are worth now.
Look for 工匠 tools in Loews.
My son’s law firm is handling the Sears bankrupcy.
I had received a boom box from Sears for my birthday. It didn’t work. I took it back, the salesman tried it with the same result, then went to the back room and brought out another one. He tried it, it worked perfectly, said “There ya go” and that was that.
A few years later I had purchased a Swiss Army Knife from Sears. It was Sears branded but made by Swiss Army. I dropped it, breaking off the tip.
To my surprise, they exchanged that, too. I still have and use it.
‘But I believe that the medication you need is still available.’
ha ha ha...
you could even have a house shipped to you (but you’d have to take it off the train). Sears offered something like 10 models, many recognizable in older neighborhoods.
https://unbelievable-facts.com/2019/09/sears-homes.html
We bought our Kenmore washer and dryer and Samsung 55” TV when we moved 5 years ago.Still running great. They sent us a reminder to renew our extended warranty on the washer and dryer. I better get er done.
One last thing, Sears sold Viewmaster stereo viewers. Remember those?
You put the disks with the little photographic slides in, and you could, with a little lever on the side, index the disk and see stereoscopic views of whatever the subject is. You could buy packets of 3 disks on different subjects. I still have mine, and the set of Apollo11 disks. Gotta be worth some bucks!
I had a Viewmaster. The slides that intrigued me the most were the Seven Wonders of the World.
Telescopes, and good ones too. Highly collectible today. I think they were made by Unitron, but branded Sears.
I used to live a block from a Sears regional distribution center back in the late 80’s. There were probably 100 loading bays and the in-going/outgoing traffic was heavy.
10 years later the place shut down and was sold to developers who tore down half of it to build a mega shopping center and saved the other half for manufacturing and warehouse space.
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