The Sears at Oakbrook Center opened in 1962 which was similar to lots of Early 60's Chicago area Sears stores like Golf Mill, River Oaks Center and Park Forest. This Sears was 3 floors and even had the new logo till General Growth which owns this store with Sertigate Growth Properties with now General Growth now Brookfield Properties Retail Group owns entirely. In 2017, they found a tenet which will open later to take the 2nd and 3rd Floor while Sears will still operate on the 1st Floor which would mean they wouldn't have a mall entrance. Unlike most renovations, Sears decided to close the store for about a year to renovate it and make it new unlike most downsize by Sears. The store is currently 60,000 Square Feet featuring Appliance, Mattress, Tools, Shoes and Clothing but no jewerly, auto center, electronics and other small stuff carried in other Sears stores like Toys and a home department. Lampert mention in his plan for Sears of what Sears plans to look like and this store was the prototype for future Sears downsizes. Let's take a look.
The New Look
Working On The Replacement For Most Of This Sears
The Newer Sears Logo which debuted in 2010
Heading Towards Tools And Christmas
Tools
Advertising For The Sears That Reopened. Even though it reopened 3 months ago.
Another Look At The Main Entrance
The Yes! Oak Brook is clearing a marketing ad
Clothing
Look To The Main Entrance
Everlast, My Personal Favorite Sears exclusive for clothing
Woman's
The Search Bar meant for ordering things online, I have seen employees use this at the Bloomingdale Sears to help customers find tools
Merchandise Pick-Up, the earlist of the Pick-Up Merchandise idea used by many retailers these days
Treadmills
Shoes, you can see the checkout in the distance
Mattress Land, don't really understand why a store this small needs such a big mattress department
More Shoes
Mattress And Appliance are next to each other
This store also has a huge treadmill area as well
This is alot of treadmills, lots that people wouldn't even buy
The Shop Your Way Welcome Center is basically Customer Service but psychically for Shop Your Way members
There the checkouts with Thank You! Oak Brook. Updated Kmart stores have got Thanks sign also mentioning the city the Kmart is located like Norridge, Elmhurst and Bridgeview.
Christmas Department, this is where I bought alot from the day I was there
More of the tools
The Appliance Department in this location looks similar to the Sears Appliance and Mattress stores that they've been trying out.
Yes! Oak Brook
This is the only Sears to have designated entrance and exit locations. This is the where shoppers exit.
And This Is Where Shoppers Enter
While Lampert has talked about getting rid of clothing at Sears, this store while has a small selection of products still does get the job done for being a Sears store. If this store is the route that Sears decided to expand on, I wound't mind especially with the fact that clothing would still exist, which is what I mostly buy from Sears. Hopefully that this would be in the Sears of the future, only that they really should have kept a mall entrance to keep traffic continuing. But if Lampert decided to take clothing out of Sears, I'm certain that it would be worst, most of Sears shoppers that I see buy clothing. It really would be a huge part gone and would most likely be a huge mistake for Sears. Stay turn for more Sears, Kmart and malls here on Midwest Retail.
