Last Sears In NJ, At Newport Centre Mall in Jersey City, To Close

JERSEY CITY, NJ — The last remaining Sears department store in New Jersey will soon turn off all its lights.

One Hoboken resident caught these photos of signage placed this week at Jersey City’s Newport Centre Mall, advertising a “closing sale” with deep discounts.

The store is the last remaining Sears in the Garden State, according to the company website.

The other anchor tenants at the mall — Macy’s, Kohls, and J.C. Penny, remain open.

In June, the Irish department store chain Primark posted on social media that they would be coming to several U.S. malls, including Newport Centre, so they may be the next tenant of the space.

A representative for Simon Malls did not return an email by this writing, but the story will be updated with information on closing dates when it is received.

Jersey City Video

Since 1895, American consumers have counted on the Sears-Roebuck company for home goods, car batteries, watches, and reasonably priced clothes — but competition and changing times have slowly killed the retailer.

According to a Smithsonian history, Richard W. Sears and Alvah C. Roebuck founded the mail-order company in the 1880s to sell watches. Soon, people across the country relied on the Sears catalogue to order household appliances, farm equipment, and Christmas gifts. The catalogue sold for one dollar in 1902.

In 1925, the Chicago-based company began opening retail stores.

But the once ubiquitous Sears stores began dying out along with the malls containing them, due to competition from Amazon, Target, and the like. ( Monmouth Mall Demolition To Begin In March)

Last year, one New Jersey-based influencer walked through Sears with a video camera and reported that it seemed desolate.

“Is it empty and dying? Yes,” wrote a commenter in response. “Did the staff at least try to make it look presentable? Yes. Props to the workers at this location making the best of a bad situation.”

If you want to see the Sears in Jersey City before it closes, the mall is accessible by Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, the Newport PATH train stop, and has its own parking garage. See Sears on the mall map here.