Sears at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge Louisiana opened along with the mall in 1997. I took two trips to this store in 2021, this is the first trip to the store for the blog. This trip was on March 15, 2021. The store is listed at 123,744 square feet of retail space.
The billboard on Bluebonnet Blvd. advertising the store closing sale.
The Sears auto center with the Sears store in the background.
The auto center was already closed at this point in the store closing sale.
Now for the main attraction.
The main entrance to the store on the second level.
Just like the Pasadena Texas Sears from the late 1990's, this store had outdoor advertisements near the entrance.
Walking into the store puts you into the Men's department.
The old portrait studio and notary counter.
As I have found at some recent Sears store closing sales, you could freely walk into the old portrait studio.
The weird places you see mannequins!
Looking back towards the Men's department.
The notary office.
Now back to the Men's department.
Part of the shoe department.
Women's clothing.
Jewelry counters.
The second level of the store contained all of the clothing departments.
Escalator area in the center of the store.
More of the Men's department.
Second level shoe department near the escalators.
Down to the first floor we go. Hardlines, tools, appliances, lawn and garden, mattresses, and the rest. Yet another weirdly place mannequin in the tool department fixtures.
Floor model microwaves.
Store liquidation signage.
I love the signage here.
The tool department checkout counter.
The majority of the remaining tools at this point in the sale.
The signage in the background was something I had not seen before in a Sears store.
Grills and random lawn and garden items.
Now this sign is hilarious. Imagine if you got a Sears gift card from your employer.
I would have to say that this store was pretty well taken care of. This area looks very nice even though the bargain hunters have been ripping apart the store.
Merchandise pick-up area.
A weird area between the package pick-up area and lawn and garden department.
Lots of grills.
These sheds look pretty nice, in the photos and on display.
The mattress department had a newer floor.
Softlines
The bare wall looked strange in this area.
And as always, the mountain of rugs. Can anyone comment on where all of these rugs at the department store closings come from?
Before Fast Eddie took over this was probably true.
Remaining beds and bedding accessories.
Looking at the view of the front mall entrance checkout.
Appliances with the mall entrance to the left.
Vacuums and supplies.
More of the appliances.
I am pretty sure that this was the electronics department. This is the corner near the tool department.
More mattresses and fixtures.
Looking at the appliances from the possible former electronics department.
I should have tried to get the Sears 125th anniversary sign. It was drilled into the wall though.
Now that I think about it, I should have tried to get all of these signs.
More views of the first level of the store.
Taking a look out into the mall.
The mall entrance checkout.
Now for the sporting goods and more of the tool department.
The escalator area looks fancy from this view.
More of the tool department.
The tool department had some good fixtures.
The view from the tool department to the possibly former electronics department. And there is yet another weirdly placed mannequin.
A few more views of the electronics department.
Now we pop back outside for a look around the store.
The mall entrance, we will see the rest of the mall at a later time.
Now we have a few more shots of the second floor of the store at the tail end of the business day.
The view of the mall from the second-floor mall entrance.
Now for the mall entrances.
Second level, just before the store closed for the day.
First floor, the store closed an hour earlier than the mall.
Now for the store view at night.
This side of the store was quite odd. This entrance just seems strange, and the sign did not light up at night. From the looks of the sign, it was not setup to light up.
Part two will be released in the future, along with video footage of the store.
More to come, stay tuned.
This Sears held on longer than most of the other ones did since it was around in 2021. Actually, the inventory here isn't as bad as what I'd expect from a 2021 Sears. That said, I'm sure the inventory was still pretty thin before the liquidation and all the fixtures might be doing a good job making the store look fuller than it was before the liquidation. I wonder how much of the inventory here was sent back to be sold at Sears Hometown locations as ones like the Humble one would have been opening right around the same time that this store closed.
ReplyDeleteThis store looks a lot like the Pasadena Sears. This comes from a time where Sears was using a common design at their newer locations as opposed to their older strategy of giving each new store a different design. Even though this store was fairly new by Sears standards, it looks like there might have been some major maintenance issues since so many ceiling tiles are stained. There are also some large holes in the wall, but that might have been a liquidation thing as I think the employees stop caring about things.
Maintenance issues aside, this store looked pretty good for a Sears. The wood flooring in the mattresses department looks nice and this store seems to have plenty of newer signage like those Sears 125 years signs. This looked like a legitimate department store. The notary department is quite strange, but it seems like a lot of Sears had oddball departments and leased areas. I suppose the Sears Driving Schools were the strange things with Houston Sears.
I'm surprised they were selling those dummy microwaves as fixtures because someone on YouTube wanted to buy a dummy microwave from a Sears closing sale in Illinois and they wouldn't let him buy one since they were dummy microwaves. The person wanting it was okay with that as they just wanted it as a prop, but the liquidators wouldn't make an offer.
I like that display for Arrow sheds. At one time, both Sears and Montgomery Ward had those displays. Wards kept them in Electric Avenue. We bought an Arrow shed badged as a Sears many years ago, in the early 1990s I suppose, so it was neat that they still had them until 2021 at least.
I don't know what's up with that exterior sign. I wonder why Sears didn't just put a regular sign there like they usually did even in lightly used corners of their stores.
It's neat getting a look at a full-line Sears especially as we get more removed from their presence, thanks for the great photos. Sears Hometown has given us an unexpected taste of Sears, but that is already falling apart. I guess we're both lucky that Humble and Willowbrook are the remaining locations, but who knows how much longer those will remain.
This Sears had a pretty active Facebook page prior to the liquidation and from the looks of the store it was pretty well taken care of. I am surprised they did not reopen this store as a Hometown store. This store felt small, but it is listed as almost 124,000 square feet. It did not feel anywhere near as large as Pasadena and The Woodlands locations.
DeleteThis Sears seemed to operate as if it was not going away and the appearance of the store with the exception of the holes in the wall was pretty good. Even the signage and fixtures did not look faded and tired like some of the locations here in the Houston area.
I did pick up a shopping basket from this store on this visit. On the second and final visit, I got some fixture signage but not the 125th anniversary sign which was gone. The liquidator was initially not going to let me keep the signage with the fixture holder, but I was able to nicely keep it from going into the trash can.
Deerbrook had some sheds in the store in the final years it was open. Once the toy department was cleared out a lot of space was open, and they filled some of the space with sheds.
That sign was very strange, and that side of the store just did not look very appealing. Normally the merchandise pickup door had some sort of appeal, but this one was very plain. Maybe this plain design was made to clash with the blue glass of the next-door Macy's.
I need to visit the Willowbrook Sears Hometown location, but my posts will take a backseat to my personal affairs for a little while. I cranked out a few posts last week and have a couple more on deck for this week and next.
If my employer gave me a Sears gift card I'd think they were disappointed in me, lol.
ReplyDeleteThat entrance in the last image is weird. With the letters not being three dimensional, I wonder if maybe the sign (and the entrance itself) was added later.
For sure, I would have to think it was a prank. I did get some Kmart and Sears gift cards to prank relatives in the future.
DeleteI am curious as to how that entrance came to be. It just does not fit the store at all and looks rough. Usually the merchandise pickup doors have some sort of design.