Sears, Roebuck and Company, 333 North Alabama Street, in 1929. Image: Bass Photo Co. Collection, Indiana Historical Society
Sears, Roebuck and Co. opened its first location in Indianapolis on July 25, 1929, just three months ahead of the stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression, with a building designed by the local architecture firm of Pierre & Wright. The timing was not ideal, but store manager M.C. Penticoff was confident his new store would do well. “Indianapolis has the potential to take its place among the commercial centers in the Midwest.” The exact place, as far as Penticoff was concerned, would be the southeast corner of Vermont and Alabama Streets – 333 North Alabama.
The newly constructed art deco building quickly followed along the merchandising strategies found at Sears stores nationwide. They peddled everything from knickers and yarn to hardware and appliances. Shoppers could go to Sears for any item needed in a home, including the kits for building the house in which to put them.
A 1935 advertisement for Sears home construction plans. Source: Indianapolis Star, 1935.
Indianapolis indeed proved to be a good market for Sears. Additional locations in the suburbs began popping up in the early 1960s. By then, the 30-plus year-old flagship store seemed dated. So in 1964, Sears spent a million dollars remodeling the structure to “keep step with Indianapolis’ downtown renewal program.” The updates included changes to shopping sections designed to re-categorize merchandise into three areas—clothing and fashion departments on the first floor, furnishings on the second floor, and sporting goods, radios, TVs, and catalog sales in the basement. Outside the building, they covered the art deco exterior with aqua-colored porcelain and enamel panels illuminated with Mercury Vapor lights.
Fifteen years later, Sears Downtown celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its grand opening with an open house, a show of 1929 fashions, and a contest to see who owned the oldest edition of the Sears Catalog. A display of classic Model T’s graced the parking lot in front of the Sears Auto Center located on the opposite corner of Vermont and Alabama.
Sears Downtown in 1929, as shown in a newspaper story covering the store’s 50th anniversary in 1979. Source: Indianapolis Star, July 24, 1979.
Sears Auto Store as it appeared in 1929 on the northwest corner of Alabama and Vermont Streets. Source: Indianapolis Star, July 24, 1979.
The anniversary celebration was a fitting tribute, but business was not as robust as it had once been. Just four years later, Sears announced the store’s closing, explaining that it had been operating at a loss for the prior five years and that it had been a “victim of changing shopping habits.” The store closed, officially, on July 16, 1983. Sears hoped to sell four parcels connected to its store in one package—the main building and parking lot, the credit office near East and Vermont, and a separate parking lot near the Athenaeum. The Sears Automotive Service Center and a “scratch and dent” outlet on Massachusetts Avenue remained open a little longer.
Showing the Sears Auto Service Center on the northwest corner of Alabama and Vermont Streets, across from Sears-Roebuck on southeast corner of same intersection. Indianapolis Baist Map, 1929 IUPUI Digital collection
Footprint of Sears, Roebuck in 1941, including the entire block bounded by Vermont to the north, New Jersey to the east, New York to the south, and Alabama to the west. Indianapolis Baist Atlas Maps, 1941, IUPUI Digital Collection.
In an effort to assert some control over how the property might be redeveloped, Mayor Bill Hudnut and the city of Indianapolis went to work to acquire the parcels. The Metropolitan Development Commission approved the purchase of the four properties in September 1983, setting the wheels in motion for a complete redevelopment of the site, which included plans to remove the exterior enamel panels from the store as part of a campaign to qualify the building as a historic structure.
By late 1986, the old building was the centerpiece of Lockerbie Marketplace, a $15 million project by Mansur Development Company. O’Malia’s Food Market took the ground floor’s 35,000 square feet– the first large supermarket in downtown Indianapolis in decades. They established an east facing entrance to the store that changed the address to 320 North New Jersey Street. Daniel O’Malia, president of the store chain, described his company’s venture downtown as “riskier than average for the store, but could also have greater than average rewards.”
Despite years of concern about the viability of a grocery store in the neighborhood, O’Malia drew encouragement from a small but loyal customer base and began to see the gamble pay off. In 2001, O’Malia signed a new lease to stay in Lockerbie for six more years. That summer, Marsh Supermarkets announced a deal to take over the store. Eventually, rumors surfaced about Marsh closing the location, but in 2007 Marsh and Sun Capital Partners, Inc. made a commitment to downtown Indianapolis with a $3 million facelift to the building, and they rebranded the store as Marsh the Marketplace at Lockerbie.
Marsh occupied the old Sears store until early 2017, when the chain filed for bankruptcy. It sold fifteen of its former locations to Ohio-based Fresh Encounter, Inc., which has renamed eleven of them, including this location, as Needler’s Fresh Market. These days, the old Sears property is more than a grocery store. Lockerbie Marketplace, bounded by Alabama, Vermont, New Jersey and New York Streets, has grown as a center of business and work life in the neighborhood. The upper floors of the Sears building feature work-space services and other businesses. An open courtyard connects the store with neighborhood-serving businesses, including a dry cleaning service, a hardware store, professional offices and community service groups. Parking at the northeast corner of the block, even in two-hour limits, is an especially welcome and essential service in the area.
In its heyday, Sears, Roebuck was the place where you could find most anything you needed in one place. Years later in a different way, its former building and the rest of Lockerbie Marketplace has formed another version of that original vision.
The Sears, Roebuck and Company Building, featuring Needler’s Fresh Market on the ground floor, as it appears today. Image: HistoricIndianapolis.com photo.
These Then & Now articles are so interesting, and I enjoy seeing the old photos. Thank you!
When I was a boy, my Mom and I would take the bus downtown to shop, and we often went to this Sears. They had a nut shop at the time, so I treat I always looked forward to was a box of cashews or mixed nuts to eat on the bus ride home.
Roy Rogers , Trigger and Trigger jr. visited the Sears store about 1949 and they had the horses in a tent outside the store. I was a kid of 8 and all the kids were excited to see the horses. Roy was at Victory field and thrilled everyone when he rode Trigger.
Tom- I think the year may have been 1948. He and Dale were in town to promote their Rodeo. They did several personal appearances including a parade on Pennsylvania Ave. which included Roy and Dale riding on saddles made by saddle maker “Ted Flowers” (Anderson IN.). The Gun Club marched in the parade as did a (Veteran of the Civil War. ???) I too was at Victory Field. Only Roy and Tiger came because of a heavy rain. I got to the front row of a first base box seats in hopes of shaking his hand, but no shuck luck, he went way out the way to avoid a large puddle. If you can add or collaborate any of my recollections please get back with me. I do have 4 faded slides of the parade. — What a great time to be six.
I work in the third floor of this building currently – and have always wondered some of the bits of history. thanks for the article and comments!
But what is the tower space used for?