Fashion Square Mall Sears is closing. This is Sears on East Colonial Drive. Today was the last day. Soon, it’ll be demolished to make way for something new.
I’ll always have a soft spot for Sears and Roebuck. My mom took me there often when I was a kid. My Sears was at the Cutler Ridge Mall, back in the 1980s. This Orlando Sears very much reminds me of that one from my youth. Same basic floor plan, although this one was built earlier, back in the early 1960s. Since moving to Orlando in the early 2000s, THIS store has been my Sears. It makes me nostalgic for a variety of reasons.
Below, I’ve attached a couple of full page Orlando newspaper ads from 1969. The primary Sears in town at that point was the East Colonial Drive location, and it’s featured prominently in the bottom of each ad. Click either image to get the full page ad.
I like the fact that these ads also feature the locations of other regional Sears stores. The Downtown Orlando store, Cocoa-Rockledge, Titusville, Melbourne, Leesburg, Pine Hills, Mt. Dora and Satellite Beach.
Here are some photos of Fashion Square Mall Sears on it’s last day. It’s a sad view of a store singing its death song.
Looking at the side of the store, almost from Maguire Boulevard.
The back entrance, near the tool department.
I bought and coveted a lot of Craftsmen tools in this department. I spent some quality time here.
The filing cabinet on the right has been inside this Sears for a long time. Note three separate shades of paint. The green is most likely original, but there’s been new layers of brown and beige. The structural lines of the handles and label frames make me think it’s from the 60s. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was an original fixture in the store.
Empty jewelry display counters.
These chairs are from the shoe department, I believe. Either that, or from outside the dressing rooms. The style bespeaks the early years of this Sears. They may not be from the 1960s or 70s, but I wouldn’t bet on them being from any later than the 80s.
So many empty fixtures.
What? Nobody wanted these pregnant mannequins?
Some external photos of East Colonial Sears, before and after Fashion Square Mall:
A photo from Swampy’s Florida of Sears in 1963
A photo on Pinterest of Sears in 1982
