Homart Development Company, a Chicago-based subsidiary of Sears, was one of the largest builders of shopping centers and malls in the United States from 1959 to 1995.
Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Mall development |
Founded | 1959 |
Defunct | 1995 |
Fate | Acquired by General Growth Properties |
Successor | General Growth Properties |
Headquarters | Chicago, IL |
Products | Shopping centers |
Parent | Sears |
As retail development in the United States shifted away from downtowns with the growth of suburbia after World War II, some major department stores such as Sears moved into the business of developing malls in which to place new anchor tenant locations. [1] Homart Development Company was founded in 1959 for the purpose of building regional shopping malls for Sears. [2] The "Homart" brand name had been used by Sears for many years before the development company was founded. [3]
Seminary South Shopping Center in Fort Worth was their first project. [4] [5]
By 1971, Homart was operating nine regional shopping locations, and had numerous others in development. [6] It became the nation's second largest mall developer, [7] and by 1992 it was reported that Homart had developed 80 malls with over 75,000,000 square feet (7,000,000 m2) of retail space. [8] By 1994, it was also operating 36 of those developed malls. [9]
In November 1994, Sears announced that it planned to sell off Homart as part of a restructuring. [10] General Growth Properties completed an acquisition of Homart in late 1995 in a transaction valued at $1.85 billion, then one of the biggest real estate deals in history. [11] [12] [13] Homart also owned a number of office buildings which were also sold in 1995. [14]
Sears executive Emory Williams was the first president of Homart. Warren G. Skoning was appointed president in 1967, [15] and elected as chairman in 1974. [16] Also serving as vice-president of real estate development for Sears, Skoning was involved in the development of the Sears Tower. [17] [18] [19] W.E. Lewis was named president in 1974 when Skoning became chair. [16]
Edwin Homer, former president of Chrysler Realty, joined as president in 1980, later became chair and CEO, and served until his retirement in 1984. [20] [21] [22] Homer diversified Homart's portfolio by developing office properties and community centers, in addition to malls, and also sold some of Homart's malls to generate additional profit for Sears. [21]
In 1985, Michael J. Gregoire was named president and COO, and he also became chairman in 1987. [23] [24]
Notable shopping centers developed by Homart include:
The Nanuet Mall in Rockland County New York opened in 1969- 101 stores anchored by Sears and Bambergers, (first enclosed mall in the county and about 25 miles from Manhattan).
Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail ordering catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores.
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Burnsville Center is located in Burnsville, Minnesota. It is one of the larger enclosed malls in Minnesota with 100 stores on 3 floors and approximately 1,100,000 square feet (100,000 m2). The mall opened in 1977 with three anchor stores, Sears, Dayton's, and Powers Dry Goods as anchors.
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Willowbrook Mall is an enclosed regional mall in Willowbrook, Houston, Texas at the intersection of Texas State Highway 249 and Farm to Market Road 1960. The mall has 6 anchor stores: Dick's Sporting Goods, Dillard's, JCPenney, Macy's, and Nordstrom Rack. In 2000, the mall was the 3rd largest Houston-area retail development based on net rentable area.
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