Designer: Nimmons, Carr & Wright (Chicago)
Builder: Fleming Construction Company
Construction: 1955-1956
Location: 2100 Southfield Road, Lincoln Park (48146)
Years Active: 1956-2018
Current Status: Multi-use development (oversight: Novak Construction Company)
Lincoln Park had “The best in the world”
Story and photos by Kevin Harrison
Date of visit: October 27, 2018
Times and tastes may change as we enter new eras of living, yet the legacy that has been Sears, Roebuck and Co. will always live on in the minds of many Americans as perhaps the greatest symbol of retail might in the country’s history.
Although Montgomery Ward, one of the chain’s first main competitors, spearheaded such ideas like the Christmas Wish Book as well as the “Satisfaction Guaranteed” mantra, it was Richard W. Sears (shown at left) who took the ball and ran with these ideas, making them a focus of their operations.
The second edition of their catalog (1894) was already 322 pages in length, putting it well on its way to becoming a part of the American fabric through most of the 20th century.
By 1906, Sears, Roebuck & Co. (business partner Alvah C. Roebuck is pictured on the right) became the first major retailer in United States history to successfully offer a stock IPO. Nineteen years later, they opened their first store in Evansville, Indiana. In 1933, the first version of their Wish Book arrived for the holidays and immediately became a family staple at Christmas time.
Sears would mark its Downriver debut in 1940 with their Wyandotte store at 3061-3063 Biddle Avenue (corner of Elm Street) in the downtown district, designed internally by the store’s architectural & engineering staff, a common practice at the time. The building’s footprint was small (12,000 square feet) and could fall under the “outlet store” classification, but was three stories tall with an attached auto repair garage.
This store would operate until 1977, when it shuttered due in part to lack of available parking spaces downtown, paired with the firm’s desire to consolidate operations into its flagship store in nearby Lincoln Park, which had opened in 1957 at 2100 Southfield Road.
The Lincoln Park location was the largest Sears store in square footage (estimated at 270,000 square feet) built up to that time, and its design was likely a prototype for other Sears stores that would follow in the next five years. By the mid-1960s, the Lincoln Park store took credit for being the most successful Sears store in the world, due largely to its prime location, the building’s sheer size, the accompanying success of the secondary shops in the attached center, and owed also to a timing factor still in play; the suburban boom the Downriver area experienced since the close of World War II was still taking place. Notable at the time was the necessary expansion of the site’s automotive garage, which could not keep up with the demand for batteries, tires and so forth.
The substantiated growth of the chain continued largely unabated well into the 1980s, and was the preferred store of choice from an advertising standpoint among many media stars, such as Cheryl Tiegs and Jaclyn Smith in later years. Its brand name appliance models such as Kenmore became literal requirements in each household. For the men, seemingly no one went without a Craftsman tool kit. Best car batteries in town? One could always count on the Sears DieHard brand for best functioning in frigid temperatures.
Didn’t even know whether you were in a Sears? The nose always knew: a gentle mixture of cashews, peanuts and popcorn added to the atmosphere and excitement of being there. Armed with their new credit card (Discover), the chain held the title of king of the retailing world until approximately 1990, when up-and-coming Walmart took over the top spot. From that point, Sears began a period of depressing stagnation.
Despite freshly renovated stores as well as a new slogan (“There’s more for your life”) and image developed in the 1980s, they were slower to come up with new innovations in product or methods to keep up with consumers’ changing tastes.
Facing blistering competition and not knowing the best path to immediate sustainability, Sears participated in one of the more controversial, head-scratching mergers in recent American retail history when, in 2004, they were bought out by discount chain Kmart. Combined, the corporate entity became known as Sears Holdings, and cross-promotion of each store’s brand items became commonplace. However, many were of the opinion that the updated arrangement confused the shopping public more than before.
Management, which had recently moved to their new headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, began cutting out some of their subsidiaries in an effort to save cash. What was needed more than ever, especially with the Kmart chain in tow, were better inventory control and higher quality product. Attempts at change were fast and furious, but lacked the quality and care which were required to make the changes effective to the evolving shopper.
By the 2010s, Sears had no choice but to start closing down underperforming stores, in its chain as well as Kmart. The discount chain vanished from Downriver rather quickly, although the traditional Sears stores would remain until 2017, when these began being slated for closure. In spite of its tremendous history for the one time retail giant, the Lincoln Park store was not spared the ax, as closure would be forced upon them in the beginning of 2019.
Personal Reflections:
The first time I can recall going into the Lincoln Park Sears store was around 1973, and was possibly the only visit I made over there when they still had the covered walkway leading from the building to Dix Toledo Road. I remember this because I had asked my father on the second visit what happened to the “ceiling!”
I remember when you first entered the main entrance facing Dix Toledo, the women’s department was to your left, as it always would be. Many department stores still catered to the psychedelia movement for the Love Generation, who were just starting to mature.
What I remember when looking to my left was distorting to the eyes: black and white pixelated murals above the wall displays and, for some reason, I thought silhouettes of The Beatles were among the mural highlights.
There has always been a question of where I took my first escalator ride, but I believe that was at this Sears location. I clearly remember the sides of the escalator being a pearl blue, which they kept into the 1990s.
Typically, I was a toy shopper (who among my age group wasn’t?), but the one place I could actually see myself getting excited about clothing was in fact Sears… And this was simply because, at the time, they carried Winnie the Pooh merchandise. I was a huge fan of the story franchise back then, and Sears had everything, even shoes dressed up as Winnie.
In one of my first moments of anguish as a consumer, I was mortified when the contract expired. Welcome to the world of business!
I always remember getting my childhood portraits done there. And I feel badly for the portrait staffers who had to deal with me, as I was a rather emotional sort when it came to pictures. I remember their portrait studio was on the second floor on the west end. For years, I felt they totally underutilized the second floor, as there was not enough floor space for merchandise. This was addressed through one of the Lincoln Park store’s most radical interior changes in the early 90s. They had a kitchen furniture department styled in the way of a museum. The mood of the settings was very comforting to me, as everything was done up dark to where only natural light showed up on the furniture pieces.
Shortly after that department was phased out was about the time I visited less and less. I was aware of their financial difficulties, but I was still lucky to make more than one visit per year. I would drive past the store hundreds of times, but would never go in. I knew back then the writing would be on the wall with this Sears store, and I was actually surprised that it survived as many rounds of store cuts as it had.
These pictures were taken just as the Out of Business signs were being posted inside, so it was likely only a matter of days since Sears had made the announcement.
It was rather depressing to see the condition of the store. The biggest shock to me was the fact there was no more candy department. Something didn’t smell right about Sears for the first time ever.
The atmosphere wasn’t necessarily one of panic, as even the Out of Business announcement wasn’t initially gathering too much of a crowd to help buy out the remaining merchandise.
The store was understaffed and, in places, disorganized. Many departments, such as electronics, were shuttered. The auto service bays were devoid of cars. Morale was understandably unsure.
Subsequent drives by the building have not yielded too much of an increase of cars in the parking lot. It appears that one of the grand dames of retailing Downriver is destined to go quietly into the night. But what a run it has had.
For a few short years, the city of Lincoln Park indeed had bragging rights to having the best in the world.
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