Since I already covered this store a few weeks before this visit, I will just post the photos without commentary. There is not much more I can say about this store. It was truly sad to see this store go even though this wasn't a Sears store that I had memories of. Numerous similar Sears stores closed over the years where memories were made, presents were bought, and time was passed with families and friends. As I get older, I see more and more things that younger generations will never experience, like shopping at Sears and Kmart. Now these trips are just memories. I was able to get a few more things added to my Sears collection thankfully.
Please check out my recent posts of the Corsicana Outlet Mall and West Hill Mall 2021 update if you haven't already.
As of the posting of this, I haven't been to a full-sized Sears store since this visit. There are only 11 Sears and 6 Kmart locations left in the US and US Territories as of this post. Chances are that we will not have a chance to visit another store since the closest Sears is nearly 800 miles away from me and the nearest Kmart is well over 1,000 miles away.
The topic of Sears came up recently at another blog, Northwest Retail's blog, since he recently posted a set of photos at a currently-operating Sears store near him at Southcenter Mall in the Seattle area. With that, it was hard for me to believe that it has been four years since I last shopped at Sears...not counting Sears Hometown, but maybe I should count that. I don't know, the fact that Sears Hometown even existed here still seems hard to believe, lol.
ReplyDeleteThis is surely one of the newest Sears stores you've covered on the blog aside from the Sears Grands and The Great Indoors stores. Even with that, this store looks pretty rough in some spots. I'm thinking the Willowbrook Mall Sears and some of the other Sears around here were in better shape at the time they closed. That said, it is interesting to see some of these fixtures. I knew that cardboard box addressed to the electronics department manager must have been quite old and, indeed, it looks like it is from 2013. I guess the electronics department managers only lasted a year or two after that.
Those door handles are quite interesting, I wonder if those existed anywhere in Houston. I suppose if they did, it would have been at Pasadena Town Square, but I can't say I remember those. Granted, perhaps I always entered that store through the mall. The cash registers and mutilated mannequins are certainly an interesting sight. I'm surprised that Simply Styled got such a large banner, that brand was Kmart grade stuff and probably wasn't something worth promoting. Sears sold a lot of good house brand clothes even towards the end, but Simply Styled wasn't one of those!
I'm not sure if you've seen these, but the company who is listing a number of Sears properties for sale/lease in this area for TransformCo, including the Willowbrook and Deerbrook Mall Sears, has posted some videos from inside the empty Mall St. Vincent Sears. If you have not seen these, you'll certainly want to check them out: https://www.youtube.com/@Ntpre/videos
In local Sears news, it appears the Baybrook Mall Sears is currently undergoing a remodel so that a furniture store, Living Spaces I believe, can move into the spot. I wish it was something more interesting than that, but oh well, at least the spot is getting something.
I'm not sure if you saw Mike's post about this, but it sounds like the Greenspoint Fry's is getting a new tenant for at least part of the space. It looks like Joe V's will be moving into that spot. We'll see, Joe V's has announced new locations and then they never materialized so maybe we shouldn't count on this actually happening. It certainly seems plausible though. Obviously, the Joe V's won't be even remotely as nice looking as the Fry's was. I guess it'll be back to looking like a Builders Square like what the building was originally. Even then, it was a Builders Square II so I doubt the Joe V's will even look that nice.
Anyway, it was nice seeing three new posts on the blog today! I'm glad to see the blog alive and well again. I'm glad there is still some Sears content left as those Sears and Kmart posts were really the backbone of this blog for quite a while. At this point, it has been such a long time since I've shopped at a 'real' Sears store that I'm having to dig a bit deeper into the memory bank to try to visualize these stores. Like you, I've likely had my last Sears B&M experience unless Eddie Lampert has something up his sleeve. Even then, I'm sure any possible shenanigans Lampert might have left will hardly remind us of the prime era of Sears.
I appreciate the links to the old Sears tours. It is pretty cool to see the inside of the store looks the same as when it was open. I have seen some videos of Mall St. Vincent, and it appears to be a dying mall now. The other major indoor mall in the area (Pierre Bossier) is dying as well. I will check out the Northwest Retail blog post as well. There are a few newer Sears videos on Youtube that I watched, but none of the big retail vloggers have been covering these stores as they get harder to find. I guess the only realistic way to shop at Sears or Kmart these days is online.
DeleteThis Sears trip was faster paced than my previous visit. I arrived a couple of hours later than anticipated and the store closed an hour earlier than the mall. I had less than 2 hours to explore the store and I really wanted to get as much as possible for the blog. I also wanted to get a few more relics so that takes a bit of time away to poke around the store. This Sears store was probably one of the least interesting stores to me. Maybe I was feeling Sears burnout at this point, but I really wasn't too excited for this store. I guess once our local stores closed, it changed my outlook for the remaining stores.
Living Spaces will be a great fit for Baybrook. The empty Sears anchors with the exception of Willowbrook Mall are really starting to look aged. Even though Sears wasn't much of a draw, the second-floor corridor leading to the old Sears at Deerbrook Mall has 6 vacancies now. Baybrook doesn't have this issue, but filling an empty anchor is a must for any mall.
Joe V's is probably one of the better options for the Fry's site. Fiesta would have been another, but they recently remodeled their nearby store and will stay there. Coincidentally, I have my Fry's NASA post under construction to post by this weekend. I also have a newer Greenspoint Mall update almost finished with teasers to my 2023 and future 2024 visits to the mall.
Just a quick addition, I just saw that the blog recently topped 1,500,000 views. Congrats on a major milestone! It seems like just yesterday that you were celebrating 1,000,000 views!
ReplyDeleteYes it does, especially with the pace of life since the 1,000,000th click. Thanks for keeping the blog lively as well.
Delete