Now that Hobby Lobby, At Home and Home Goods have all opened, and while the venerable Sears Hastings Ranch is still within recent memory, I thought it would be interesting to take a quick look at Sears’ history in East Pasadena.
Sears’ East Pasadena history starts in 1956 when the company announced it had acquired 16 acres on Foothill Blvd. between Rosemead and Michillinda Blvds. The photo above, taken from Foothill Blvd., looks north over the construction site. A billboard adorned with stylish 1950’s design announces the coming Sears store.
The photo above, from Pasadena Public Library via Pasadena Digital History, rovides a pre-Sears store view to the looming San Gabriel Mountains, East Pasadena’s ever-present backdrop.
Before to moving to East Pasadena, Sears had a long history in downtown Pasadena. From 1930 to 1958, Sears was located in an eight story former furniture store at 532 E. Colorado Blvd. (between Madison and Oakland). That’s the old Sears building in the photo above from the Pasadena Museum of History. When Sears moved to East Pasadena, this building was sold to Bank of America.
On September 10, 1958, Sears moved from downtown to its new East Pasadena store. The photo above, taken in 1958, shows the newly built store located at 3801 E. Foothill Blvd. Photo from Pasadena Public Library via Pasadena Digital HIstory.
Notables on hand for the store opening included Sarah Lett Roebuck, of Pasadena, widow of the store’s co-founder Alvah Roebuck and Joel Sheldon, president of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and owner of Vromans Bookstore.
In the 1950’s Sears was one of the largest, if not the largest retailer in the nation selling everything from appliances to apparel. Part of Sears success was due to its strategy of placing stores in suburban areas with open land and convenient automobile parking. Locally, Sears had long eyed moving from its eight-story Colorado Blvd. location to a larger location that would provide more floor space and more parking.
Perhaps a nod to stay connected to downtown Pasadena, for the store’s grand opening and several days following, special city busses ran every half hour from Colorado and Fair Oaks taking downtown customers out to the new Hastings Ranch Sears.
Despite the special bus service, the new Hastings Ranch Sears was a classic auto-oriented development of the kind criticized by planners today. The store was buffeted by acres and acres of pavement for parking. It was built for cars, or put more gently, for people with cars. Whereas the old downtown store occupied less than an acre and had parking for 73 cars, the sales and service part of the new store took up five acres and was surrounded with paved parking for 1,800 cars. If you wanted your car serviced while you shopped (or if you wanted to shop while your car was serviced), the store had service bays for 22 cars. (9/10/58 Pasadena Independent, 9/10/58 Los Angeles Times)
June, 2024 — In place of Sears, there is now Hobby Lobby, At Home and Homegoods stores. There is still of lots of parking.
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