Business & Tech

Sears Demolition: 'All Of A Sudden, It's Gone' From Harford Mall

The old Bel Air Sears store has been demolished at the Harford Mall.

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Crews obtained a demolition permit from the town of Bel Air on Feb. 2 to remove the old Sears from the Harford Mall. By March 1, piles of rubble were in the place where the vacant store once was.
Crews obtained a demolition permit from the town of Bel Air on Feb. 2 to remove the old Sears from the Harford Mall. By March 1, piles of rubble were in the place where the vacant store once was. (Elizabeth Janney/Patch)

BEL AIR, MD — A month after the town of Bel Air issued a demolition permit for the former Bel Air Sears store, the structure is nearly gone from the Harford Mall.

"If you haven't driven past the mall," Bel Air spokesperson Patti Parker said this week, the store that once housed Montgomery Wards is now "in little piles."

Developers presented plans last spring to take down the old department store and build a standalone shopping center next to the Harford Mall.

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"It was this wait," Parker said. "Then all of a sudden, it's gone."

Parker spoke at the end of a work session of the Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners Tuesday night. She said she has taken photographs of the site, which has been a part of the town for decades; it was a Montgomery Wards store before being taken over by Sears in 2001.

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"I was a little sad," Parker said. "They had a little cafeteria in there when I was a kid."

Photo courtesy of Bel Air Community and Public Relations Manager Patti Parker.

The Bel Air Sears went out of business in February 2020 amid the chain's closures nationwide.

In October, the owner of the mall — CBL Properties — announced it closed on the sale of the former Sears store in Bel Air to developer SJC Ventures for $5 million.

The developer is planning to build a standalone shopping center called The Shops at Harford, which will be separate from the mall and anchored by a grocery store.

Last spring, developer Jay Douglas told the Bel Air Planning Commission the grocery store would be "high-end."

SJC Ventures signed a tenant the week before the commission's May 6 meeting, Douglas said, but he did not disclose the name.

In early January, a representative for the developer told The Aegis that a spa and two fast-casual restaurants had also signed leases for the Shops at Harford, which will contain up to eight tenants when it opens by September 2023.

Said Parker: "Progress is definitely happening."

What are your memories of the former Sears at Harford Mall? Tell us in the comments.

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