Sears, Roebuck and Company Catalog Distribution Center and Retail Store

About this property

Crosstown Concourse is a mixed-use development and historic high-rise building in Memphis, Tennessee. Originally built in 1927 as a Sears retail store and catalog order plant, the building was closed in 1993. A 2015–2017 renovation brought in retail, restaurants, office spaces, and apartments. Crosstown Concourse is at the intersection of Watkins and North Parkway in Midtown, Memphis, a few miles northeast of Downtown. The address is 495 North Watkins Street, Memphis, Tennessee 38104. Designed by Nimmons & Co. in Art Deco and Art Moderne styles, the building is constructed of steel-reinforced concrete with a brick veneer. The main building is ten stories tall with a 14-story tower, considered a high-rise even by the standards of 1981. Originally on 16 acres (6.5 ha) of land, the building was expanded in 1937, 1941, and 1965, ending up with an area of 1.5 million square feet (140,000 m2) on 19 acres (7.7 ha). The basement covered 75,000 square feet (7,000 m2) and had 14-foot (4.3 m) ceilings. Floors one and two had 17-foot (5.2 m) ceilings with 227,500 and 190,100 square feet (21,140 and 17,660 m2), respectively. Floors three through ten each had 139,100 square feet (12,920 m2) of area and 11-foot (3.4 m) ceilings (excepting the tenth floor with 14-foot (4.3 m) ceilings). The building has a maximum height of 188.00 feet (57.30 m), and was certified LEED Platinum in 2017. Of 1526 parking spaces, 1130 (74%) were in the parking garage, while 396 (26%) were surface spots. In 1925, with the rate of automobile registrations outpacing available retail parking, Sears' vice-president of factories and retail—Robert E. Wood—decided that the company's new big stores would be built away from city centres, and instead in low-density areas where costs were cheaper yet car-owning customers could still reach. Sears Crosstown and Sears-Pico were among the first new constructions beholden to this edict. Sears scouted the site in secret to prevent price gouging by locals if it was learned in advance that the retail giant was interested in property. In the late 1920s, the chosen location was in a suburban neighborhood two miles (3.2 km) from Downtown. The building was originally dual-purposed as both the city's first Sears retail store and a catalog order plant. The original groundbreaking took place on February 21, 1927, and after only 180 days of construction, Mayor Rowlett Paine—who had allocated US$100,000 (equivalent to about $1.9 million in 2025) to build streetcar tracks specially for servicing the 640,000-square-foot (59,000 m2) building—cut the ribbon on August 27, 1927. The very first day of business saw almost 30,000 shoppers.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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