This Sears opened in 1972 and closed in November 2017. This store and the Baybrook location which was closing at the same time, had a longer than normal store closing sale. Sears was built 3 years before the Westwood Mall that the store was attached to and outlasted the mall for nearly 20 years. The store and surrounding parking lot is now used by Momentum BMW as a car dealership. The building only sat vacant for about 2 years before redevelopment started. Some parts of the old anchor can be recognized, but a lot of the building has been heavily renovated. This Sears was also used in the filming of the movie Adam in 1983 click here to see the movie.
September 24, 2017 visit.
Electronics department had been mostly taken over by the rug sales.
Westwood was one of the last Sears stores to have a full electronics department in the area. Around 2015 a lot of Sears stores, especially the ones in smaller markets removed electronics.
There were still some electronics left at this point.
For some reason, the carpet had been stripped out of this department.
The hearing aid department was located in the small area just in front.
Going back towards the Men's department.
Lawn and Garden and Sporting Goods next to the Men's department.
More of the Men's department.
The walkthrough separating the Men's and Women's clothing departments.
Going upstairs.
Buzz
A lot of the second floor, except for clothing, mattresses, and some odds and ends had been moved downstairs.
I wonder what was behind this wall, looks like it was some kind of mini-store.
I am not sure what was in this room just to the left of the above walled off area of the store.
This is what you see when looking into the glass door.
More of the second floor. Some odd mattresses were also located up here.
Looking towards the Children's clothing department.
I am not exactly sure where the mall entrance was. It had to have been somewhere along this wall, or further to the right. Please let me know in the comments if anyone knows. There is also the possibility that there were two mall entrances.
The lonely checkout.
Here is a better view of the escalators.
Back to the first floor, we find another lonely checkout.
An up-close shot of the store closing flyer.
A newish Sears basket.
More of the Lawn and Garden department.
Sporting goods.
Craftsman; Quality you can trust.
Now we are venturing into the tool department.
Looking from the tool department to Lawn and Garden/Sporting Goods.
Note the old school sign on the right door.
As you can see on the right side shelf, more electronics were available.
Up close look at some of the fixtures.
The area ahead was used for seasonal items.
Venturing through the seasonal department to the merchandise pickup and back offices.
An awesome Memorial Day setup, still up even as the store was closing.
Back out to the sales floor we go.
A wide view of the remains of the electronics department.
Appliances, as you can see they had the updated signage at the time.
Entrance to the electronics and appliance departments.
More of the electronics.
Another lonely register in between customer sales. This one was still being used off and on.
A look at some of the ads featured on the credit card touch screen.
More of the Appliance department.
Another set of double doors with an old school sign still in place.
The sale had a weird discount span listed. 10-60% off regular prices.
Now for a closer look at the electronics department.
This had to have been the employee training video TV.
This small display with TV's is better than Sears stores have in 2020, very sad.
This is another entrance to the appliance department.
Now for some exterior shots of the store.
The auto center.
As you can see here, the outside Garden department area can still be clearly seen. It was used for storage for many years.
Things are getting wild behind the window, lol.
Old school merchandise pickup window.
A better view of the former Garden department.
Now for some stunning shots of the Auto Center.
Final shot of the day, onto the next visit.
Now for my final visit on October 9, 2017.
A couple of weeks later, inventory was still decent. A lot of stores were closing at around the same time, it is possible slow moving inventory was moved here from somewhere else. We will start in the Women's department.
Jewelry counter to the right.
This entrance had been closed for some time. You can see the Sears Optical sign here too.
Another fixture graveyard had been created in the corner of the Women's department.
More of the Women's department and Jewelry counter.
Pretty sure the wall straight ahead past the clothes rack was the mall entrance. I did not get a good photo unfortunately.
A look through to the Men's department.
More fixtures are now stretching through the Men's department now.
Back through Lawn and Garden towards Appliances.
Some beat up furniture leftovers.
A very interesting find in the fixture setup. The wheelchair was not in the best shape, some parts appeared to be broken on it.
More leftover, furniture pieces.
And just like that, we pop up to the second floor. The mattress department had this extended section.
A peak into that active second floor hallway.
And we jump again, back to the first floor again. I tried to get a better photo of the entire Craftsman sign, it didn't happen.
Somewhere in this area of the store or closer to the electronics department is where Adam His Song Continues appears to have been filmed.
The tool department checkout pictured here was still active.
An up-close photo of an interactive display.
Another view of the tool department checkout.
The former exit to the Garden center.
The Tool and Seasonal department exit. You can also see the pallet of Smart Sense bottled water that Sears carried for a brief time.
A variety of new and old hand baskets. There are even a couple of The Great Indoors baskets mixed in. The fixtures at this sale are from just about everywhere in the company. The only thing I didn't see here was the Sears Grand shopping carts that I have seen at a few area Sears stores.
A display that featured multiple advertisements for Sears products and services.
These carts are very similar to Kmart carts. I am not sure where they actually came from though, there were no Kmart labels or any other labels on the carts.
More of the seasonal department.
A spooky face drawn on this box.
Last look at the remainder of the electronics department.
Final look at the appliances.
Lawn and Garden.
Heading through the Men's department again to the exit.
The bottom areas under the escalators had a door and a small light fixture.
As we move to the exit for one last look at the store, we find another pallet of water bottles.
Farewell Westwood Mall Sears, yet another store lost in 2017. Stay tuned, more content to come.
How did this Sears survive for so long after the mall closed?
ReplyDeleteThis store actually did fairly well from what I understand. It was a case of the property being more valuable than the store for Sears. First Colony Mall never got a Sears and Memorial City and West Oaks were far enough away for this store to retain their customer base. The loss of Dillard's, Montgomery Ward, JCPenney, and Macy's at Westwood and nearby Sharpstown Mall helped this store to stay afloat as well. There was a time when Westwood Mall almost caused Sharpstown Mall to fail. The Foley's at Sharpstown almost moved to Westwood which would have boosted Westwood, while Sharpstown would have been left with only Montgomery Ward.
DeleteIs the first photo one of a JCPenney closing sale?
ReplyDeleteYes it was, thanks for pointing that one out. It was a photo from the North Shore Square JCPenney that I photographed at around the same time. I have since removed the photo.
DeleteThis is the Houston area Sears made famous in Hollywood. Well, at least in a made-for-TV movie, but a pretty popular one. The Adam movie in the link seems to be some kind of sequel to the original 1983 Adam movie which had a lot of shots of the store. The parts in the movie were what was in 2017 the seasonal area near tools which was then where the video game display was. There was also the lighting department (I'm not entirely sure what was there in 2017), the garden center, and then that office corridor upstairs. Some small parts of Westwood Mall was also in the movie.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I don't see a copy of the original movie on YouTube. I've seen it uploaded and then taken down a handful of times over the last 5-6 years. I'm sure it'll probably come back eventually. If I see it again, I'll post a link to it here.
I know we talked about maybe doing a blog post where you show the modern scenes of this store that were seen in the movie. There was a lot which did not change a whole lot. The green tiles which make a fake grass look were still there back then I do think. That is one of the more memorable parts of this store.
I only visited this store a couple of times that I can remember. One was in the 1980s and I hardly remember anything from that. The next visit was around 2014-15. Unfortunately, I can't offer much insights on where the mall entrance was. I remember speculating about that after my visit and I think I was able to figure it out then, but I can't remember the conclusion to that. It's been a little while since my visit.
The back part of this store was very strange with the covered parking and the very small Sears logos. The covered parking was strange. It almost felt like you were driving into the store.
This store had the most complete electronics department of any Houston area Sears in around 2014-15. This store even had software for sale like CDs/DVDs for Microsoft Windows (probably version 8 at that time) and Microsoft Office. I did not see any pictures of other Sears around the country or even Kmarts which had software like that for sale at that time. It's kind of strange that Sears would sell software like that because it had been a long time since they last sold computers.
The first floor of this store was quite impressive. As you can see, the clothing departments were quite spread out and had some nice displays. The first floor was quite huge, it really felt like they could have put the whole store just on that one floor. The second story was comparatively much smaller and less impressive. It's not unusual for top floors at Sears to be smaller, but this one was a lot smaller than the ground floor.
During my visit in 2014-15, Sears had a TV and sound system display where that light is in the escalator complex. It was playing a Michael Jackson documentary and his music seemed very appropriate for this store which was somewhat stuck in the 1980s-90s.
Those carts are very strange. I've never seen a newer Sears cart like that and those other metal carts must be Kmart carts. Maybe they gave them new handles to remove the Kmart logos?
I remember those Kmart wheelchairs, lol. I wonder if they ever wheeled any Sears shoppers around on that broken, old Kmart wheelchair. I suppose that was Sears' response to Walmart's electric scooter carts, lol.
I really can't explain why Sears did not build a store at the First Colony Mall. Even by the time that mall opened, it was clear that Sugar Land was going to be the dominant part of the SW side and that's where retail needed to be. Maybe the Westwood store could have survived as well just as the Alemda Mall Macy's has as an in-between store, but they needed something further south as well and West Oaks was not enough of an answer. Sugar Land would have been a great location for a Sears Grand store.
That is the version of Adam that I have watched previously. I didn't know there was a slightly different earlier version out there.
DeleteI may see if I can modify the post in the future to include scenes from the movie.
The second floor was probably only about quarter of the size of the first floor. The side of the store near where the mall entrance/entrances were is wide and shrinks. I am not sure if this area was bigger years ago and shrunk when the mall closed.
This Sears and The North Shepherd Sears had the bigger electronics departments for longer than the majority of the area stores. Even in 2020, North Shepherd still had the small area with some electronics remaining.
It was odd to see the variety of Kmart, Sears, and The Great Indoors items mixed in with the fixtures. I wonder if that Kmart wheelchair had been at the store since Kmart stores closed in the Houston area. It has the early 90's logo so it is possible.
Sears Grand would have been a really good store for the Sugar Land area. I am not sure if Westwood would have still survived though.
Sears could have picked up that wheelchair from one of the Kmart closing sales. That's certainly possible, but I don't think Sears was that cheap in the era before Lampert. It's hard to imagine old Sears using old Kmart fixtures, but it's pretty easy to see that happening in the Lampert era. It seems like Sears stores get some unusual fixtures sent to them from closing stores like carts and such.
DeleteYes, I remember the N. Shepherd Sears surprisingly having some electronics on my last visit there in 2018 I suppose it was. One thing I remember is that they had started to paint the electronics area to turn it into something else, but they either didn't finish or they did a really bad job painting it. I'm not sure if they ever fixed that.
I would say that in at least 2014-15, the Westwood Mall Sears had even more electronics than the N. Shepherd store. The electronics department covered a lot of ground, but things were spread out even back then when they had a full selection of TVs.
If Sears did open a Sears Grand store in Sugar Land, probably one of either Westwood or West Oaks would have closed. Westwood seems like it would have been the more likely candidate. Sugar Land and the suburbs around it are so big and are relatively wealthy. It's really shocking that Sears would expect those potential customers to go to the Westwood area to shop when many of the people who moved to Sugar Land left the Sharpstown/Westwood areas. Oh well, maybe Sears had big plans for the area and things just never worked out.
The rest of the electronics department was finally painted over, sometime in 2019.
DeleteJust like everything that happened in the fast Eddie era at Sears, it was a missed opportunity. We would probably not have the Sears Grand in 2020 either way.
Apparently, there was a Sears a Grand that still had all of its original departments in Cape Girardeau, MO. It closed permanently about 7-8 months ago. I think it was the last one that had all of its original departments intact, including pantry, electronics, and cosmetics. Some of this information is based on Google Maps, so forgive me if I am wrong about this.
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting me know about the differences at the Cape Girardeau store. I briefly researched this store when I made my Sears Grand post, but I don't think I noticed that the store was still fully intact.
DeleteWhen you see how nice this store was, you wonder why Fast Eddie stopped expanding the Sears Grand concept. These stores were Sears stores of the future. I think that if the company had switched to this concept, things would have gone better for the survival of Sears Holdings. Even some mall locations and Kmart stores could have been converted into Sears Grand locations.
The only Sears Grand I visited in the Austin area did not have any extra departments anymore. Furniture and mattresses had taken over the area where the food and health products were at.
From the pictures, it looks like the Cape Girardeau Sears Grand still had cosmetics, cleaners, and pantry items in around 2015 at least. I'm guessing all of that came from the Kmart supply chain. The electronics department was looking rather sparse even in 2015 and they already had boxes of appliances in it.
DeleteThe main thing pre-Lampert Sears had going with Sears Grand wasn't so much the concept itself, but rather that they were building new stores in the hottest neighborhoods which were not near malls. Even around 2000, people were predicting the death of malls and so Sears knew it was critical to build new big box style stores in the hottest suburbs. That wasn't some stroke of genius by Sears, it was just commonsense.
Then Lampert took over and commonsense went out the window. In theory, it should have been easier for Lampert to run Sears Grand because he would have had Kmart's supply chain to fill in some of the departments that were not traditionally Sears departments. But, no, that's not what happened. New stores were not built under Lampert, some of the non-traditional departments were shut down at many locations, and the rest of the traditional departments decayed under Lampert's watch. Things like the wall of CRT TVs, which should have been removed in around 2008, were left to remain until these stores closed.
Ultimately, I don't know if pre-Lampert Sears would have been successful selling pantry foods, pet food, and stuff like that. It seems unlikely that they could have competed with Walmart on stuff like that. The idea of women clamoring to buy cosmetics at Sears seems rather preposterous really, lol. Still, I don't think those departments needed to be a success for Sears Grand to be a success. Even if those departments were removed and the stores were rebranded as regular Sears, they would have been a success if they continued to put new full-line stores in trendy neighborhoods. Sears would have had a much better chance of surviving if they had stores out in places like Sugar Land, Cypress, and Katy. While people in Cypress and Katy may go Willowbrook and Memorial City Malls on occasion, they probably do the majority of their shopping in their own area. Sears has nothing for those neighborhood shoppers except maybe for those small format appliance and mattress stores which are easy to overlook.
Perhaps instead of some of the departments Sears put in Sears Grand, they would have been better off putting in more hardware/home improvement items which were already being sold at Sears Hardware stores at the time. It might have been easier to compete with Home Depot than Walmart and Target especially since Sears already had what was then a big advantage with Craftsman tools. Also, perhaps Sears should have sold more furniture out of those stores.
More of a hardware selection would have been great. There were a lot of items you could not find at a regular Sears store, but Sears Hardware had you covered.
DeleteSears had a lot of things going right with the Sears Grand concept. Location was definitely one, most Sears Grand stores were not at malls, but there were some exceptions.
I remember the big electronics section that was kind of walled of by a glass barrier at the Willowbrook Sears.
DeleteSorry if I put “walled of” instead of “walled off”.
DeleteWhy did they decide to open Sears Grand in Austin rather than Houston or Dallas?
DeleteI'm surprised neither Walmart nor Target have thought about doing a Sears Grand style concept, with their regular supercenter items plus major appliances. I'm pretty sure a store like that would do amazing for them.
DeleteYes the electronics department was walled off there for several years. Not a lot of Sears stores had the electronics department separated like Willowbrook had. No worries about the typo, it happens.
DeleteI wondered the same thing myself. It is possible that the site was originally going to be a mall, but for some reason that plan fell through. At that time when the store was built, Sears was only building the Sears Grand or Sears Essentials stores.
DeleteStormak356, Walmart has tested superstores with appliances in the past. For whatever reason, they only had appliances in a handful of stores. Appliances are a lot more difficult to sell and require specially trained employees and a large investment to make it work. As we saw with JCPenney, they did not have everything in place to successfully sell appliances, even with Sears faltering. Getting into the appliance market probably means huge losses until profits are made. Not a lot of publicly traded companies are willing to take that risk these days.
DeleteI am not sure about Target, but I would not be surprised if they had experimented with appliances over the years. Target has mostly eliminated their Super Target locations and their recent expansion plans are for smaller stores.
Walmart and Target do have appliances, technically. Microwaves, blenders, and toasters lol.
DeleteYou are right about that, lol.
DeleteWhen the FM 1960 W & N. Eldridge Wal-Mart Supercenter first opened in around 2001 or so, it actually had a GE major appliance showroom in the Wal-Mart. It was deemed a failure and removed within a year or so. In that case, they only sold GE appliances, they didn't have any inventory in the store, and GE was in charge of delivering products and supporting it.
ReplyDeleteSelling major appliances isn't like selling a lot of other things. Like je said, it requires trained employees and some kind of infrastructure to handle deliveries, credit purchases, service, and support. JCPenney also tried to sell appliances on the cheap by not carrying inventory in the stores and by relying on the brands themselves to actually deliver and support the products. That's not really an ideal situation and so JCPenney failed with appliances as well.
Kmart probably had more success with their Sears mini-departments because they actually had inventory in stock that people could take home with them if they needed a new appliance in a pinch. It may not be so easy for Walmart and Target to carry an inventory of appliances along with having qualified staff to sell it.
Target may have sold appliances back in the 1960s and 1970s, but I can't remember. Kmart did sell appliances back in the 1970s and that was pre-Sears obviously, but they did get rid of them at some point before getting them back after the Sears merger.
I remember the Walmart appliance showroom at another location, I think it was in Sulfur Louisiana around the same year. It was nothing special, and it was in a very small space at the front of the store.
DeleteAfter the merger with Sears, many Kmart stores went all out on appliances and devoted a large part of the store to appliance sales. That did not last for very long, and the appliances were either moved into the shrinking electronics departments or a smaller dedicated Sears Appliance and Mattress Department was opened.
Sears also had a lot more stores and warehouses to rely on for deliveries in the past. Usually an appliance would be delivered within a week or less from Sears. A lot of retailers that don't have the items in stock have trouble getting items out within a week. Discount furniture stores are notorious for this except for places like Gallery Furniture.
Super Kmarts seemed very cool because they had a full grocery section, Sears branded merchandise, and a cafe. Walmart Supercenters are the closest thing we have to Super Kmarts today.
DeleteThose stores were awesome when they first opened. Walmart in the Houston area, did not have a lot of Supercenters at the time. The Super Kmart's were also open 24 hours a day. Eventually some departments such as the electronics were closed off at night. One time I got my fishing license at the Humble Super Kmart. The Humble location had a Little Caesars location in the store right by the health and beauty and grocery.
DeleteSuper Kmarts were pretty nice. I made a few trips to the Westheimer Super Kmart and I also visited the Humble Super Kmart at least once. Super Kmarts and Walmart Supercenters are pretty similar, but I thought the grocery departments of Super Kmarts looked nicer and more like a regular grocery store than the grocery departments of Walmart Supercenters.
DeleteAs it is, it seems that my last visit to a Kmart ever will be my visit to the Moon Township Super Kmart about a decade ago. I liked the Moon Township Super Kmart. I was quite impressed with the grocery department. The general merchandise part of the store was more modern than the vintage Kmarts, but I thought it looked pretty boring because most of the walls were mostly just plain white. At least the store felt more spacious than vintage Kmarts since the ceiling was a bit higher and the store had better lighting.
As je said, Super Kmart arrived on the scene here in Houston a few years before Walmart Supercenters did so those Super Kmart stores did have some 'wow' factor to them. Still, Auchan was around before Super Kmart was and Super Kmarts and Walmarts were never going to feel as special as Auchan. Well, at least that's the case with the West Belt Auchan. Auchan was bigger than a Walmart Supercenter and they had a lot of unique items that one would not find anywhere else. Plus, Auchan didn't just have one fast food vendor, they had a whole food court with McDonald's, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and a couple of others.
Sorry if I implied that Sears branded merchandise was sold at Super Kmarts before the merger between Sears and Kmart in the above comment on Super Kmarts. The first Super Kmart location opened in 1991, way before Sears merged with Kmart.
DeleteIf Sears branded merchandise had been added at the beginning of the Super Kmart era. It could have helped the company out a lot, when Kmart was still growing and profitable.
DeleteThere used to be a modern-looking Sears store at Coronado Mall in Albuquerque, NM. It closed roughly a year ago. From what I can tell by looking on Google Maps, it looked small for a Sears store at a mall.
ReplyDeleteI found a video about the store closing. That was a very nice looking Sears store, but most of the downsized updated stores like this one are gone now. It was a failed experiment to keep Sears going while redeveloping a large part of the building. https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/sears-files-for-bankruptcy-coronado-store-will-close/5108714/
DeleteThe black basket with the current Sears logo most likely a Great Outdoors unit like the ones below it. Same with the black Rehrig cart. It appears those newer Sears logos are on matching black stickers.
ReplyDeleteIt is a Great Indoors basket. I own one of these baskets that came from the North Shepherd Sears store. I am not sure if these baskets had been inherited from this store. They only had 3 available for sale so I bought 2 from the North Shepherd Sears. The North Shepherd Sears also had Sears Grand shopping carts, but those were way too big to bring home.
DeleteSo this and Sunrise Mall in Corpus were the only two Texas malls to star in movies in the 80s?
ReplyDeleteCloak and Dagger in 1984 had some scenes filmed inside the San Antonio Windsor Park Mall. Those are really a trip to see in 2022. https://youtu.be/TezPgXmBC5o
DeleteSkateland 2011 had some scenes filmed in the now mostly closed off Marshall Mall in Marshall Texas. I couldn't find a good link to those scenes on Youtube, I have the DVD at home.