Here is an update to the contest which closed on December 1st, 2021. The contest winners have been notified. Thank you for all of your support here on the blog. Now for the feature presentation 👇
Sears Parks at Arlington Mall opened in 1988 as an original anchor of the mall. Parks at Arlington Mall was also a Homart development, which was a Sears company as well. We visited on August 2, 2020, a week before the store permanently closed on August 9, 2020. The store was in really good shape and appeared to have recently been painted.
We will be entering the second floor which is mostly apparel.
Inside of the store, we will see that this is a fairly standard Sears location.
More areas of the store that once were filled with Children's clothes and were blocked off at this point in the sale.
Men's clothing. The inventory here had been consolidated elsewhere.
What is left of the clothing at this point in the sale.
The second floor had some fixtures, but the bulk of fixtures was on the first floor.
The tables were placed here to block this portion of the store off. About half of the second floor was blocked off at this point.
More of the remaining clothes and the mall entrance.
This is more than likely where the Men's pants were located in the past.
More emptiness.
The escalator ceiling design here is interesting. A lot of the stores built in this era had skylights so this is something different.
Now we head downstairs.
Fixture graveyard.
A newer Bath sign in a font I haven't seen before.
The first floor exit and merchandise pickup.
Former tax counter, hearing aid counter, or optical?
Typical Sears, a CRT TV still in use for the package pickup area.
As always, the typical store closing rug sale.
Lots of seasonal boxes here. It was weird seeing these with 90 + degree temps outside.
Now for the lawn and garden and tool departments. This is the section of the store that was reopened for the Sears Hometown store.
Tons of shopping carts for sale. No handbaskets left that I could find unfortunately.
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A look at the various shopping cart fonts.
What once was a wall of tools, is now empty.
More fixtures spilled over into this section of the store.
A few appliances and odds and ends were left.
A decent amount of tools on these racks at this point in the sale. The real question is do they have 10mm sockets?
I am trying to remember what department had this blue background. Maybe it was sporting goods.
More fixtures, there were a ton of shelves, racks, and shopping carts. I guess the good smaller stuff had already been sold off.
More views from this same area. Tools/lawn and garden/sporting goods.
One of the stranger fixture pieces up for sale.
Another unique sign with a font I haven't seen before.
Another view of the massive pile of shopping carts. I wonder if these are now being reused at an Ollie's somewhere.
As you can see, we were in the final days of the sale.
The remaining outdoor furniture sets and vacuum cleaner stuff in the background.
A lonesome appliance checkout counter.
More fixtures!
The former electronics department.
An interesting find. I was having a hard time finding the former electronics department until I found this.
Looking to the escalators from the former electronics department.
More of the appliance department.
A cool vintage sign. Just when you think that a store isn't interesting you find something awesome like this.
The office where this sign was located had seen better days.
Here is the mall entrance to the store. The entrance is very similar to the Rolling Oaks Sears store in San Antonio which also opened in 1988.
Now for a handful of photos as we leave the store. These are from the second floor.
The jewelry counter.
The final look before we leave.
Now for some more exterior shots of the store.
As we head out, the story of this location is not over. The store has recently reopened as a Sears Hometown. Only a portion of the first floor is being used, but the mall entrance is open once again.
We didn't have a chance to walk the mall as we were running out of time on this Sunday afternoon. We had 2 malls left to visit which have already been posted on the blog. The Northeast and Hulen Malls.
