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.
That might be Spectrum Brands. I know they have several of those, but I didn’t know they had acquired Craftsman.
They once sold their own brand of automobile, the “Sears Allstate.” It was really a rebadged version of the Henry J built by Kaiser Motors in the early 1950s.
Same here. Bought tools and a rolling tool box. Still have them all.
In 1962 I bought a Craftsman 40 piece SAE mechanic’s tool kit with tool box. Don’t remember what I paid. Still have all the tools.
Had to replace a 3/4” socket that broke when I used it with an impact wrench to remove car lug nuts. Wasn’t designed to work with an impact wrench.
Sears replaced it no charge. I can still remember the salesman saying, “Go over there and pick you out another one.”
And if I remember correctly, the Craftsman name is going to be slowly phased into the Stanley name and Craftsman will disappear.
Thirty and forty years ago Craftsman tools were highly regarded, well-made, and backed by a no-questions-asked warranty. They were never made to the same tight tolerances as Snap-On for example, but if a Craftsman hand tool broke you took it back to a Sears store and they gave you a new one, smiling while they did it. Then they went to things like “repair kits” to fix broken ratchet mechanisms, which were priced on the shelf at $.01 (1 cent) so the kit was essentially free, but it was still the beginning of the end for Craftsman.
Now Craftsman tools aren’t any better or more trustworthy than a bunch of other everyday and store brands, Stanley included.
My friend lives in a Sears home, I think from 1922. Beautiful wood interior, lovely design. Surprising for a "mail order" home. I see it and think of how much crap we build nowadays.
End of an era.
And could have been the Amazon of our day. They shut down their catalogue division just before it would have been obvious to take it online instead
Kenmore appliances are just a re-brand of another appliance brand like Whirlpool or Maytag. You can track it down with the serial number as to what it actually is.
Lowes sells Craftsman tools. I think they bought the brand. I don’t know if they retained and/or will honor the old Craftsman warranty.
I worked part time at Sears for three months in 2019.
If the store was typical of Sears I can see why it is in sharp decline. Little employee training, outdated and often broken cash registers, unreliable inventory system, trying to sell nearly useless appliance warranties, and an odd assortment of merchandise which turned off customers.
Lowes Home Centers
And took 20 years to pay it off at $8 per month? :-)
I remember my first credit card, a Minnesota Vikings-themed Citibank VISA. I looked at it and thought, “This piece of plastic is the same as $2000. $2000!”. I had never seen that much money in one place in my life, much less in the palm of my hand. It didn’t take long to realize that the $2000 wasn’t REAL money, but it took REAL money to pay the bill every month. I made about $8 per hour at the time, so yeah, that’s how that goes.
Live and learn, sometimes the hard way.
Amazon COO's and CEO's please take note.
Those old catalog corset ads were quite saucy back in the day.
Similar story back in ‘79 as a recently graduated college student with at that time a worthless BA degree with NO credit I went to the Sears store and bought a $200 vacuum and applied for a Sears credit card. They said no go, no credit record. For some strange reason I pleaded, I begged, I almost cried, the credit manager dude took pity but only approved $160 credit limit. I paid it off in a few months and my road to $35,000 credit card limits had begun. Now I NEVER carry a credit card balance month to month. Charge $3 or $4 grand and pay it off with first bill. Get the card points and no interest fees. What a system 😆
For boys, the women's underwear section was an important rite of passage.
$4317.00. For a house. Only one bathroom, which could be a problem with more than one female living there, but even so...
All you needed to do was put it together. Put Tab A into Slot B 10,000 times and you had a house!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.