What: Sears used to be the most important department store chain in the US and is now being stripped away.

Why it is important: Once flamboyant department store buildings are kept for their symbolic and sociological function, but repurposed. Some IADS members have shown that they were also ready to repurpose some of their stores (even partially in the same building) to follow the trend while also reduce the operational losses.

Sears which for decades covered the USA with its properties, including the highest tower in Chicago (which does not bear its name anymore today) and used to be the largest department store chain in the 80’s, now is operating only a combination of 35 stores and a website. Every month or so, they are announcing store closures, including the last store in Illinois, its home state, in November 21.

They are now selling their former stores to developers, who are repurposing the buildings instead of destroying them, after buying them on average at a price of $64 per sqm. This is due to either the lack of financial benefit to destroy the stores and rebuild them, or, more simply, due to the will to preserve the architecture and make the most of their structure, location and accessibility. New fates of these stores can include housing medical offices and apartments in a shopping district, with the calculation that patients’ relatives can go shopping while waiting, or even a weapon production plan near a US army fort.

Sears, Struggling to Sell Goods, Markets a Valuable Asset Real Estate