Lincoln Park Shopping Center
anchor tenants 1 | | |
No. of floors | 1 (2 in Sears) | |
---|---|---|
Public transit access | SMART |
Lincoln Park Shopping Center (also referred to as Sears Shopping Center) was a shopping center located at the corner of Southfield Road and Dix Highway, mostly in Lincoln Park, Michigan, though a portion containing a former Farmer Jack supermarket and a former Wendy's restaurant (now a Del Taco location) lay in neighboring Allen Park. Anchored by Sears and completed by 1957, it was one of the first large-scale strip complexes in the Downriver Detroit suburbs prior to the 1970 opening of Southland Center.
After Fairlane Green opened in Allen Park in 2005, the Lincoln Park Shopping Center would lose many of its tenants to the newer complex, while losing others to retailer bankruptcies during the Great Recession and the retail apocalypse, which culminated in Sears' closure in 2019.
History
Construction, opening and heyday
The city of Lincoln Park already had a large-scale strip development within its boundaries, Lincoln Park Plaza, which opened in 1955 at Fort Street and Emmons Boulevard. However, it was the Lincoln Park Shopping Center that prominently placed Lincoln Park in a position of serving the community for many years to come.
Construction began in 1955 and the first store,
In 1958, WXYZ radio erected a remote broadcasting booth along Dix Highway. During the 1960s, the center's Sears store was cited as the chain's highest-grossing store, so much to the point that an addition to the store's Auto Center would be built. Up until closure, the Lincoln Park Shopping Center location was one of the largest stores in the Sears chain.
In 1965, Harold Stulberg became the manager of the Lincoln Park Shopping Center and between 1983 and 1995 embarked on a multi-year renovation project, based on customer surveys taken in 1980, which resulted in Dunham's Sports, Pier 1 Imports, Winkelman's ladies apparel, So-Fro Fabrics and Harmony House, the latter displacing a Big Boy restaurant that moved to a separate building along Dix Highway, all opening stores in the center. This included a major expansion in 1988, which saw the openings of the Jack Loeks Star Theatres Lincoln Park 8 movie theater in May and of F&M Distributors on August 1.[2] By this point, Kroger had already moved to a newer store further south on Dix Highway, which would be replaced by other supermarkets beginning after a union strike in 1984 prompted Kroger to close many of their Michigan locations. By 1997, Kroger would return to the vicinity by opening the current store across Southfield Road.
Decline
As
The center's death knell came in 2005 when the Fairlane Green ("The Hill") and Independence Marketplace
In 2015, Sears Holdings spun off 235 of its properties, including the Sears at Lincoln Park Shopping Center, into Seritage Growth Properties.[6] It, along with Dollar Tree, were the only remaining inline tenants left at the complex by that year. Additionally, two buildings existed in the outlot along Dix Highway, consisting of a Big Boy restaurant and a Bank of America branch, and a third outlot building on Southfield Road in Allen Park that formerly housed a Wendy's restaurant before it moved to a location across Dix Highway in December 2014. By June 2017, Dollar Tree would relocate to a former Walgreens store a block southeast on Southfield Road, which left Sears as the only tenant of the large-size strip complex. All connected buildings, except Sears, were torn down by March 2018. Despite the Sears anchor continuing to rank among the chain's highest-grossing stores, on October 15, 2018, Sears announced that its Lincoln Park Shopping Center location would close as part of a plan to close 142 stores nationwide after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[7] The store closed on January 6, 2019.[8] By June 2019, the former Wendy's building on Southfield Road reopened as a Del Taco location.
See also
References
- ^ "Shopping Centers".
- ^ The News-Herald (Southgate, Michigan), unknown date in 1988
- ^ Grass-roots organization forms to oppose Wal-Mart The News-Herald (Southgate, Michigan), October 19, 2007
- ^ LINCOLN PARK: Walmart project in peril after appellate court reverses ruling The News-Herald (Southgate, Michigan), December 19, 2012
- ^ LINCOLN PARK: Shopping center to be torn down with exception of Sears store The News-Herald (Southgate, Michigan), February 8, 2012
- ^ "At Lincoln Park Shopping Center | Seritage".
- ^ Sears store closing list: 142 more Sears, Kmart locations closing in Chapter 11 bankruptcy USA Today, October 15, 2018
- ^ Twin memories from 50 years ago come together today The News-Herald (Southgate, Michigan), January 2, 2019