[ad_1]
Sears has been part of Chicago for over a century. It ends Sunday.
The Sears final in the city limits of Chicago ends. Known as the Six Corners Store, it opened its doors in Irving Park District 80 years ago, during the Great Depression. On the first day, 100,000 buyers walked through the doors.
A real estate company intends to turn it into a mixed development of shops and apartments.
The closure of Six Corners is another sign of the financial problems faced by what was once an iconic retailer. Sears has lost $ 11.2 billion since 2010, its last profitable year. Sales plummeted 60% during this period.
Sears Holdings ( SHLD ) which operates both the Kmart and Sears brands, had a total of 3,500 US stores when the two brands merged in 2005 Now there are less than 1,000.
Local merchants said they feared losing a long-time anchor to the neighborhood, even though they do not receive much business anymore. Sears customers.
"Do we love empty stores? Absolutely not, but it was not a big draw," said Rich Buckwalter, 62, owner of Rasenick's, a store that sells boots. work and work clothes.
"If this closure had occurred 25 years ago, I'm sure the owner here at the time would have been much more concerned."
Buckwalter says he's been to Sears many times since the closure was announced in April. But he said it was probably 10 or 15 years ago that he was buying something himself.
"We used to buy tools, batteries and auto parts, but there is no reason to go there longer, they have been doing the same thing for 50 years, and it's not working anymore. " he said. "This is not good, especially for employees, that's why I worry."
The store had 113 employees when Sears announced its intention to close it.
Sears declined to comment beyond confirming that the store will close Sunday.
Related: How Sears Changed America
The Six Corners Store opened in 1938, but the history of Sears in Chicago goes back again further.
The company began as a catalog retailer in the late 1800s, bringing mass-produced products to many rural homes for the first time. He moved his headquarters and warehouse to Chicago in 1887.
When he opened his first stores, in 1925, he started with two stores in Chicago, one attached to his main warehouse and head office .
The company's empire in Chicago became Allstate ( ALL ) Discover ( DFS ) Credit card and Coldwell Banker real estate, as well as radio and television stations with the letters WLS call. He represented the world's largest store, a tribute to the Sears downtown location.
Sears eventually moved his headquarters to Sears Tower, which was the tallest building in the world since it opened in 1973 until 1997, when it was adopted by the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. By then, Sears had moved to the suburbs.
Many of the other Sears and Kmart stores are no longer owned by Sears. Private money, the holding has sold a large portion of its real estate and rented properties in which it still operates stores.
Six Corners, like more than 100 other Sears stores, is owned by Seritage Growth Properties, a real estate company controlled by Sears Holdings CEO Eddie Lampert. Seritage ( SRG ) which is listed on the stock market, has a market value nearly 10 times greater than that of Sears Holdings.
Related: Here's What Kills Sears
"Sears still has tremendous strengths, but as a retail company, the value of Sears is very limited," said Michael Brown, partner at AT Kearney. He said that Seritage and Lampert can earn more money by finding other uses for the property than the rent paid by the troubled retailer.
"It's an expensive property that can bring a high price," Brown said.
CNNMoney (New York) First published July 10, 2018: 2:50 PM ET
[ad_2]
Source link
