Sears, Roebuck and Company Complex
- Year
- 1906
- City
- Chicago, IL
The Sears, Roebuck and Company Complex in North Lawndale was the retailer's mail-order engine and corporate headquarters from 1906 until Sears moved downtown to the newly completed Sears Tower in 1973. At its peak the complex covered roughly 40 acres, anchored by a 3,000,000-square-foot mail-order plant that was the world's largest commercial building when it was finished.
the building
What survives. Only three buildings remain from the original 40-acre complex, adaptively rehabilitated for other uses. The mail-order plant itself, the building that made the complex famous, was demolished, and its footprint is now occupied by the Homan Square redevelopment.
significance
Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978, when the giant mail-order plant was still standing, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
nearby
- Central Park Theater
- (Former) Anshe Sholom Synagogue Building
- King-Nash House
- Henry E. Legler Regional Branch of the Chicago Public Library
- Waller Apartments
- Shedd Park Fieldhouse