Anyway, the focal point of this store is this fancy "grand aisle" setup leading to the first floor's mall entrance. I've never seen anything like this at another Sears, so my suspicion has always been that it's a Frederick & Nelson leftover, but at the same time, Sears did a lot of work on the exterior of this store when they took over, and this looks more like something from the 80s or 90s than an original 60s element, so I'm really not sure. All I know is that it's pretty cool and easily beats most other department stores I've visited!
Now that is a fancy looking Sears! In my experience, when a Sears looks this fancy, it is usually remnants of a previous retailer who used the building. In this case, it is probably a hybrid of Frederick & Nelson and Sears. The lightboxes and hanging lights are probably Sears as I've seen Sears with lightboxes kind of like that before, but perhaps not to this size. The basic design of the floorplan and ceiling is probably from Frederick & Nelson though.
ReplyDeleteThe former Sunland Park Mall Sears in El Paso is another one of those 'too good to be true' Sears locations. It looks fancy and, as you'd expect, it actually started out as a different department store. I believe that was a The Popular, a former department store in El Paso. Link to Je's post about this mall: https://southernretail.blogspot.com/2018/05/sunland-park-mall-el-paso-texas.html
Interestingly enough, another El Paso Sears, the one at Cielo Vista Mall, is one of the remaining Sears locations! This is one of the rare things that the Seattle area and El Paso have in common, lol.
Interesting! I've never seen a Sears with any sort of lightboxes like this, though it's not like I've been to all that many Sears stores.
DeleteThat store looks even more interesting than this one! Some parts of it actually look quite similar, but I guess a lot of Sears stores looked pretty similar.