Sears Lincoln Park
2100 Southfield Rd, Lincoln Park, MI 48146
Sears Store#1250
Abandoned since: January 6th, 2019
Interior Photos marked with a "*" were taken during the Demolition
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History of Sears Lincoln Park
Sears Lincoln Park, located inside the once booming Lincoln Park Shopping Center, was built in 1955 and was one of the highest grossing stores in the Sears chain of stores. It was also the biggest Sears store at the time of its opening on August 16th, 1956 at 270,000 sq. ft., even until its closure it remained one of the biggest Sears stores in the chain. The store helped grow the shopping center to new highs, and by 1988, a new expansion to the site would include the opening of many smaller stores and entertainment venues, such as the Star Theater 8, which opened in 1988 alongside the expansion.
Problems for the shopping center would come in the form of the general decline of Detroit, MI, and as many of its suburbs fell victim to decline themselves, including Lincoln Park, MI, the home of the Sears. The opening of the nearby Fairlane Green, also known by locals as "On the Hill," which opened in 2005, took much business from the Lincoln Park Shopping Center.
With the "Retail Apocalypse" of the 2010s and the rise of online shopping, many brands like Borders Books, Toys R Us, and Sears suffered. On October 15th, 2018, Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Sears Lincoln Park, although still one of the highest grossing stores at the announcement, was the first set of stores to be closed on the day of bankruptcy. On January 6th, 2019, the store operated its final day open.
The rest of the expanded stores had all gone out of business or moved by the time Sears closed and were all torn down by March of 2018. Planned in 2022 and 2023, and work started in 2024, the former Sears was demolished between April 12th, 2024 and September 4th, 2024. The first piece of the store to be demolished was the auto center and the last piece of the former Sears store was the watertower, which was knocked down on September 4th, 2024 and would be hauled off the site the following day. The site is to be redeveloped into a new development space with the construction of seven commercial buildings, parking, and a four-story hotel.
Additional Reading
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During the 1960’s the Lincoln Park Sears was the highest grossing store in the entire US
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Up until the end of Lincoln Park Sears in 2019, it was among the largest Sears Store in the Chain, other businesses also called the Lincoln Park Sear home, including a Sanders Ice Cream Shop, a Drivers Ed Classroom taught via Sears, also a thing to note is the amount of offices inside the Sears which included the Store Mangers Office, a Call Center, and other Office Space
Recollection from the author
Sears Lincoln Park wasn’t just another abandoned building it was a story of many generations of the Downriver community, the building was so huge that out of the dozens of times I ventured inside I always would find something new to admire about the building, the pillars that lined the salesfloor gave a cool backrooms vibe to the building, and the offices told the biggest story of the building, when the history books tell you this was one of the biggest Sears stores in the US there not kidding, the store was so easy to get lost in, but not in a bad way, before the demolition of the iconic store began in April of 2024, the light fixtures still stood from the day the store closed and the lights would appear to be on with the shine of a bright flashlight, before entering the building you could sense the feeling this building gave many generations of people, when the demolition began I took it upon myself to document the progress of the demolition both inside and out, and as the building became more and more smaller and more mysterious as the demolition crew made their mark working everyday to take down the iconic Sears Store #1250