Sears, Roebuck And Company Department Store (Miami, Florida)
After the area's drastic decline in the early 1980s, the building's intense structural decay, and declining sales, the store closed for good in 1983. The building remained vacant and abandoned and was the subject to graffiti and vandalism. Sears was unable to sell the property and it donated the site to Dade County in 1992. That same year, the Sears signs were removed.
The building listing was added to the National Register on August 8, 1997. By 2001, the only surviving part of the original structure was a seven-story tower. The original department store space had been demolished. The tower was preserved and incorporated it into the new Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, built in 2006.
The Sears building at one point absorbed a former Burdines department store. The Art Deco building was constructed in 1929, predating the Art Deco hotels on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach.
Gallery
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Aerial view in the 1920s
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Just the tower survives