The Sears retailer on the Sunvalley Purchasing Heart in Harmony is about to be the final one standing within the state of California — an ignoble distinction for the long-lasting American retailer, contemplating many native buyers thought it already was closed.
Simply take a look at the parking zone.
Positioned on the prime nook of Contra Costa Boulevard and Willow Go Highway proper off Interstate 680, the huge lot is generally empty. The shop itself had so few clients on a summer time day this previous week it virtually echoed. The clerk behind the watch restore counter on the basement ground seemed like a Maytag repairman from the previous commercials — the loneliest man on the town.
A buyer seems to be over house home equipment on the market on the final remaining Sears retailer within the state on the Sunvalley Purchasing Heart on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, in Harmony, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
“It’s long past sad. It’s like, let’s move on. Just close the place down,” stated Bob Goldner, a volunteer on the Buddies Guide Retailer throughout the road. “Half the people around here don’t even know it’s open.”
The mother or father firm’s web site already suggests the Sears property is on the market for lease. A web-based brochure advertises its “prime East Bay location” and its “large-scale redevelopment opportunity.”
On this photograph supplied by Sears, Roebuck and Co., crowds collect for the grand opening of the Sears retailer on Chicago’s State St. in 1932. Sears was as soon as the shop of alternative for many Individuals with its famed “Big Book Catalogue” and huge retail presence. (AP Photograph/Sears Roebuck and Co.)
Like former retail large Kmart that closed its final retailer in October, Sears’ failure to innovate as clients embraced on-line procuring and gravitated to massive field shops like Costco and House Depot led to its lengthy, sluggish decline. Sears declared chapter in 2018.
So how for much longer will the Sears in Harmony survive? And what does that imply for the way forward for the financially-strapped Sunvalley mall, nonetheless anchored by Macy’s and JCPenney, which have monetary issues of their very own?
“It looks like your classic Zombie Apocalypse mall,” stated industrial actual property dealer John Cumbelich, who grew up in Harmony and remembers the day the mall opened in August 1967. He was barely 3, however he can nonetheless envision the handfuls of big balloons that floated to the ceiling of the mall’s central court docket. Sears was the primary main retailer to open there.
Now, he stated, “you’ve got this hulking, vintage 1960s ghostly box sitting there. So it gives the mall a real morgue-ish feel.”
Merchandise on the market on the final remaining Sears retailer within the state on the Sunvalley Purchasing Heart on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, in Harmony, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
Strolling by means of the principle entrance of the shop at lunchtime final week, clothes was neatly displayed on sale racks. However you can scan the complete principal ground with out seeing a single buyer. On the basement stage, the place many home equipment nonetheless stay of their cardboard packing containers, clerks outnumbered clients three to at least one. That is the place that used to have a bustling photograph studio, an optical division and a tuxedo store. Now, the basement entrance from the mall is completely closed and on Tuesday, one of many inside escalators was damaged.
Over the course of the afternoon, nevertheless, clients filtered in, together with just a few mothers purchasing for back-to-school garments and a pair on the jewellery counter plastered with 75% off indicators.
Brad Reichenberg and his spouse, Jona Candy, bought a cubic zirconia ring for $50, on sale from the unique $200, for his or her wedding ceremony anniversary. Reichenberg has at all times preferred Sears.
“It’s no frills. Everything is there that I want,” he stated. “I got Levi’s and jewelry that’s good quality at the right price.”
Like Kmart, which turned ingrained in American tradition with its “blue light specials,” Sears Roebuck as soon as was well-known for its catalogs promoting ready-to-assemble home kits, and “you’d never think that it would go away,” Reichenberg stated.
Prospects purchase a hoop on the jewellery counter of the final remaining Sears retailer within the state on the Sunvalley Purchasing Heart on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, in Harmony, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
Gisela Fink, 95, who settled in Harmony together with her husband in 1955, remembers when the land was a tomato farm. She has shopped right here for the shop’s complete 58-year historical past and on Tuesday bought a floral shirt to go together with palazzo pants she bought right here a while in the past.
“There are more people in here now than at Christmas time,” stated Fink, holding onto her walker and scanning the shop. “They had good sales on and everything.”
As soon as this Sears closes, every time that could be, its substitute is way from sure. Sears’ mother or father firm, Transformco, didn’t return messages to debate its availability. It’s prime location — which doubtless helped it stay open so lengthy — could possibly be enticing to different tenants.
But when the Sears retailer at Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton that closed in 2019 is any indication, its destiny may linger unresolved for years. Regardless of years of redevelopment plans that decision for its demolition and substitute with a movie show, health facility, grocery retailer and different retailers, the big retailer stays empty. Housing can be being mentioned for the Stoneridge mall property.
A closed entrance of the final remaining Sears retailer within the state on the Sunvalley Purchasing Heart on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, in Harmony, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
As a result of malls are inclined to have quite a few homeowners — Sears, Macy’s and JCPenney all personal the land their shops sit on at Sunvalley — adjustments require everybody to agree and are sometimes “a quagmire” and “fraught with delays,” Cumberlich stated. Simon Property Group, mother or father firm of Sunvalley mall proprietor Taubman Firm, reportedly experiencing monetary troubles, didn’t reply questions in regards to the mall’s future.
Nonetheless, if and when the time comes for the final Sears in California to shut, Cumbelich needs to be there on it’s ultimate day. The place with the massive blue Sears signal outdoors stays etched in his mind — and on his brow.
“I’ve got this memory as a child being there the day they opened,” he stated. He was so keyed up after all of the balloons and festivities that when he bought house, he ran right into a wall and wanted stitches.
“To this day, when I look in the mirror, I see that little scar on my forehead and I remember the day Sunvalley Mall opened,” he stated. “I guess I need to be there at the last day too, so I can say that I saw the whole life cycle.”
