This Sears was part of the first round of stores slated to close with the Sears bankruptcy. The last day for this store was on January 6, 2019. My visit to the store was on January 2nd, 2019, a chilly rainy day. At this point, the store was mostly empty so I was able to walk around and see the nearly empty building. This was my only visit to the store so if anyone else has any memories of shopping here please share them.
I also have some video of the store at along with 2 other visits on my YouTube channel at this link.
The mall entrance.
Empty shoe racks.
Very little left inside of the store.
One of the few spots with products still remaining.
This was the last little bit of appliances and mattresses.
Former electronics department?
The last of the tools.
Vision center?
More emptiness right around the corner.
Barricaded dressing room.
More emptiness.
Back to the mall entrance area of the store where most of the remaining products were at.
Package pickup area.
Just about all of the fixtures left were in this part of the store as well.
The advertisement at the entrances of the store.
RIP Victoria Sears.
These pictures are interesting, thanks for posting them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen pictures of Victoria Mall. Maybe I have, but it’s just been a while. The mall looks nice from what I can see. Is there a food court near the ex-Sears?
ReplyDeleteThe Victoria Police storefront next to the Sears seems rather odd. HPD has/had a storefront in Greenspoint Mall, but there was an obvious need for that. Hopefully crime is not such a problem at Victoria Mall and that the presence of the police there is just a convenience for the citizens. Of course, I’m sure the mall will struggle a bit with Sears being gone. I’m not sure if there are any plans or hope of converting the spot into another retail anchor. At least those wanting electronics at a mall have an option with Best Buy being in or near the mall.
I reckon this was a small format Sears ala the Mall of the Mainland Sears. This store is probably older than the Mall of the Mainland store and perhaps not quite as nice, but it looks like it was a pretty nice place to shop. It is a bit hard to tell though that late into the liquidation sale. The layout of the store is probably not considerably different than other small full-line Sears stores.
The mall entrance is a bit interesting in that it does not have a white tile design like most other Sears. I do like it though. It’s interesting that the outside got new signage. It seems like most of the Sears locations which got new signage have closed.
Anyway, it’s sad to see this Sears go, but I’m glad you were able to visit it and photograph it before it finally closed.
Yes, there is a small food court near Sears. I am not sure why the police have a substation there. Maybe they got a good deal on rent to be there. The mall is over 95% full so they must have good business. The Best Buy has a mall entrance. Best Buy does not have a lot of mall locations anymore, so it was cool to see one finally.
DeleteYou are correct, the Sears was about the size as the Mall of the Mainland location. I wonder what happened to the signage, you would think they would move it to other locations, but they have been leaving them up after the stores close lately.
I was glad that I stumbled upon this Sears. I had passed through Victoria many times, but never went to the mall. I was actually surprised that the mall was as full as it was, many small town malls are struggling these days.