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| Big news! Or the ultimate "ho-hum?" |
It
actually shocked me to realize that the return of Sears to State Street occurred
in 2001. They’ve been back for nearly 13 years – with the help of funds
provided by city government from Tax Increment Finance districts. It was state funding that kept the corporate headquarters in suburban Hoffman Estates a few years ago.
YET
I ALSO have to confess that perhaps it is people just like myself who are
responsible for Sears’ inability to maintain a major department store in the
downtown Chicago area.
For
in those 13 years that Sears was back on State Street, I personally never set
foot in the store. From accounts I have heard and read from people who have
been inside, they were the rarity.
There
weren’t enough customers for Sears to make a go of it. Some of you may want to
wisecrack that none of the Sears stores have enough customers to survive. But
the modern-day Sears customer is someone who is using one of their suburban shopping
mall customer.
Not
exactly the kind of person who’s going to want to make the trip to downtown to
lug around shopping bags from store to store in search of their life’s
necessities and luxury items.
YES,
I REALIZE that there are many millions of people who work in the Loop who could
include a trip to Sears in with their routine before returning home. Although I
suspect even many of them weren’t going to want to be bothered.
It’s
hard to think of the State Street Sears store as the company “flagship” when it
most likely was an afterthought to any kind of person who was still inclined to
think “Sears” when they had shopping to do!
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| The Chicago White Sox' "real" home.... |
Which
is why the idea of Sears on State Street (at State and Madison streets, to be
exact) will be no more once we get into spring. In fact, the whole idea of
Sears as a Chicago entity is really no more. The corporate headquarters is in
suburban Hoffman Estates – and even that has threatened to leave our area
altogether in recent years.
Sears,
it seems, has become an element of Chicago history – not its present. Just like
Marshall Field’s, that little tugboat-like building on the Chicago River that
once housed the Chicago Sun-Times, and Comiskey Park.
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| ... just like this is the "real" Sears |
IN
FACT, MY own thought process thinks that the Sears store on State Street is
comparable to U.S. Cellular Field – the stadium used by the Chicago White Sox.
We
go to it, we sit in its seats and watch a ballgame. Yet we can’t help but
remember that old whitewashed brick building that used to be to the north of 35th
Street and think the current structure is somehow lacking.
As
though it’s not the real ballpark.
Just
as Sears used to be one of the anchors of the shopping district on State
Street, until they gave in to contemporary retail trends (the ones that favor a
cut rate-type marketer like Wal-mart) and closed their long-time flagship a
couple of blocks further south near Congress and Van Buren streets, the current
Sears store somehow felt like it was an imitator.
TO
THE POINT where I never felt compelled to spend money there – even though the
history buff in me fully comprehends the significance of a business flagship on
State.
So
what happens now? Other than the fact that the Chicago Public Schools has
expressed interest in moving their main offices from Clark Street over to State
– taking over at least part of the store
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| Will we someday wonder why it was called Sears? |
The
company has said the closeout sale will begin soon and will carry on until
mid-April. Maybe somebody has dreams of people who file their tax returns
early, and spend their return in one last shopping spree on State Street.
Wouldn’t
it be just Sears’ luck of late that they mark everything down significantly in
price – only to find out that still, nobody wants to make the trip to buy.
-30-
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