Sears Closing Down Iconic Brooklyn Location
It looks like Sears is permanently shutting the doors at its Flatbush location after nearly 90 years in business.
The store is the last Sears in New York City and will be officially closing Nov. 24, The City reports.
“This location has potential for redevelopment within a variety of asset classes,” Scott Carr, president of real estate for Transformco, told the publication in a statement. “We intend to reinvigorate and maximize the value of the real estate to meet the needs of the Brooklyn market.”
Transformco is the firm that acquired Sears assets.
The 100-story art deco building, sitting on a full city block at Beverley Road and Bedford Avenue, is a protected landmark.
The store opened in 1932, with Eleanor Roosevelt speaking at the occasion. Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2018, and in 2019 Sears Holdings opened some smaller-format stores around the country as part of the company's reorganization.
There were once around 3,000 Sears stores across the U.S., per CNN, and that has now dropped to around 300 Sears and Kmart stores nationally. The publication reported Monday that the last Sears in Illinois will be closing this fall.
Retail was already troubled across New York City before the coronavirus pandemic, and the crisis has only worsened the problem. Leasing volume hit its lowest point in at least the past three years in the second quarter, per CBRE. Just 1.3M SF of retail space was leased in those three months, a 15% drop from the quarter before. Average rent prices fell to $615 per SF, an almost 11% drop from the same time last year.
