Sears Roebuck de Puerto Rico, Inc., or simply Sears de Puerto Rico, was a subsidiary of Sears based in Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. The division was founded in 1961, as a subsidiary to the main Sears Roebuck and Company. The company's line of business included the retail sale of general lines of apparel such as suits, coats, dresses, and home furnishings. Sears Roebuck and Company established itself in Puerto Rico in 1937, opening a catalogue store that year. At its peak, Sears had 10+ locations on the island. The last Sears store open in the island at the Plaza Las Américas shopping mall closed on August 31, 2025.
Despite the last Sears store in Puerto Rico having shut down, the Sears Puerto Rico website is still up as of February 7, 2026.
History
Beginnings On August 3, 1937, it was reported that A. W. McClosay and R. E. Paonessa had arrived at the island, accompanied by their respective wives. McClosay and Paonessa were senior officials of the Sears Roebuck and Company, of the United States, and had come to the island with the purpose of opening an office and showroom for a large part of the products sold by said company at the time through their catalogue business. Sears in this way wanted to strengthen the relationship between them and its clients on the island.
On September 15, 1937, the first Sears Roebuck and Company catalogue store on the island would open in San Juan, the capital city of Puerto Rico. By the 1940s, more catalogue stores had opened on the island, being located in the cities of Ponce, Mayagüez and in the town of Fajardo.
On January 18, 1951, it was reported that a new catalogue store had opened in the city of Caguas. Around two thousand people would attend the inauguration of the Sears that would be established at Muñoz Rivera Street, several demonstrations were made in relation to different household items. The officials from the headquarters at the time in Philadelphia, present at the Inauguration ceremony, were very pleased with the interest shown by the public in the demonstrations offered, during which many people placed their orders with the company.
On May 30, 1951, it was reported that as of June of that year, the town of Río Piedras would have a new catalogue store which would be inaugurated in said town on the occasion of the sixty-fifth anniversary of the initiation of the company's businesses. The new catalogue store, according to Mr. Antonio Franco, then administrator of Sears on the Island, would be the most elaborate of all of the company's catalogue stores in Puerto Rico at the time.
On August 7, 1954, Sears would announce the inauguration of its new location in the town of Vega Baja in Puerto Nuevo. By the late 1950s, Sears locations had opened in Santurce and Caparra Terrace in San Juan.
Incorporation, expanding and success
On January 31, 1961, Sears Roebuck and Company announced the formation of a new local wholly owned Latin American subsidiary Sears Roebuck de Puerto Rico, Inc., which initially would operate six existing stores, five in Puerto Rico, and one in the St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.
On November 1, 1962, the first full-size Sears department store on the island would open in San Juan, Hato Rey, the 2,500 parking spaces surrounding the building being filled to capacity. The new store would open with 77,000 square-feet of sales space and would be the largest of eight retail units at the time operated by the Sears subsidiary, Sears Roebuck de Puerto Rico, Inc. Through the rest of the 1960s the chain would continue to expand opening a store in Ponce in 1964, Caguas in 1966, Arecibo in 1967, and Bayamón in 1968 at the Santa Rosa Plaza shopping center.
On October 4, 1972, a new Sears store would be inaugurated at the Mayagüez Mall in the city of Mayagüez. According to reports, the Sears store, which was one of the first to open its doors at the mall, had extraordinary sales that broke all previous records at the time.
On June 10, 1975, it was reported that management of the Sears store chain had set the goal of opening two new stores in Puerto Rico for the year 1978. According to Robert B. Gibson, then president of Sears Roebuck of Puerto Rico, Inc., Sears management was in negotiations with the management of Plaza Las Americas, Inc., owners of the Plaza Las Américas shopping mall in Hato Rey for the construction of a new Sears store in that center. The store would be similar in size to those that Sears operated at the time in Hato Rey and Bayamón, and would be located in an extension of Plaza las Américas, towards the north side of the shopping center. The new store would have around 300,000 square feet of sales, office and warehouse space, covering approximately 135,000 square feet in sales space. The other store that Sears was planning to build was the one that would be located in the Plaza Carolina shopping mall, which the firm IBEC Realty Company had plans to build towards the south of the Villa Fontana Urbanization, in front of 65 Infantería Avenue, in the Carolina area. This would be smaller than the others in the chain on the Island, and would be located in the largest shopping center in Puerto Rico when it would be built. Gibson said that there were still no calculations on the investment that these two new Sears stores on the Island would represent, and mentioned that negotiations for the development of the store in Plaza las Américas were well advanced.
On February 11, 1978, it was reported that the honorable Mayor of San Juan, Dr. Hernán Padilla would cut the opening ribbon of the new Sears store in Plaza Las Américas during the ceremony that would take place that Monday, February 12 at 9:30 am. The Sears store in Plaza Las Américas would be a very different concept from the Hato Rey store that Sears had occupied since 1962. Located at the north end of the Mall with about 240,000 square feet of total area, it was 80% larger than the Hato Rey store. Mr. John P. Simpson Jr., then manager of the Sears store in Plaza Las Américas, reported that the architects responsible for the design were Eduardo Molinari y Asociados. The Shopping Center's large parking lot with capacity for 6,000 cars and the new structure with 800 additional spaces, which connects to the store on the second level, would be of great convenience for customers. In addition to entering the store from the parking area, you could enter from inside the mall. The store consisted of over 50 merchandise departments, in addition it included a restaurant; Customer Service Center for the purchase of traveler's checks, money orders, for the payment of water, electricity and telephone bills, gift wrapping; a catalog order department; a "Key Shop", watch repair, photography studio, optical department, beauty salon, and pharmacy. One of the great attractions of the new store was also its 40,000 square-foot automotive center, which was equipped to service 30 cars simultaneously. That same year on October 9, 1978, the Sears store located in the Plaza Carolina shopping mall would also be officially inaugurated.
On December 28, 1978, the president of Sears Roebuck de Puerto Rico, Inc. at the time, R. B. Gibson, announced the final closing of the Sears store in Hato Rey which had already begun. Gibson said that all the merchandise in the Hato Rey store would be sold because they we didn't want to move any merchandise to the new store in Plaza las Américas. The liquidation would include not only the merchandise, but also the shelves, office equipment and articles shop decorations. "The decision to close Hato Rey and move to Plaza was a very difficult one to make, as our Hato Rey store has always been one of the most successful stores in the entire organization; however, the continued increase in sales of said store required moving to Plaza Las Américas, where we will be able to serve our customers with approximately fifty percent more sales space," added Gibson at the time.
On November 27, 1981, a new Sears store would open at the Arecibo Mall in the city of Arecibo.
Expanding and success, "The Store of the Future" On September 15, 1985, it was reported that the Sears store in Plaza Las Américas had undergone a major remodeling and conversion to a new display format. Mr. Paul Brierre, then store manager, reported that after six months of construction, Sears at Plaza Las Américas joined a growing list of Sears stores with the new display system called "The Store of the Future." Mr. Brierre said the 1985 program represented the second of five years it would take to carry out the remodeling and expansion of 600 stores and the construction of 62 new stores, with a total investment of $1.7 billion. Mr. Brierre added that Sears' strategy was to create an innovative environment that encouraged customers to examine and purchase a broader assortment of merchandise, including more clothing, sports goods and loungewear. "To date the results have been very good," he said. "Customer reaction has been excellent."
On June 17, 1990, it was reported that Sears Roebuck de Puerto Rico had announced the opening of Sears Brand Central, a new store concept, which there were plans to expand and open multiple of these stores on the island.
On November 9, 1992, a new Sears store would open at the Plaza del Caribe shopping mall in the city of Ponce. El Nuevo Dia. 9 November 1992. p. 137. Retrieved 9 March 2015. This same year another Sears store would open at the Plaza del Norte shopping mall in the city of Hatillo.
On October 25, 1995, it was reported that Pier 1 Imports had announced an agreement with Sears Roebuck de Puerto Rico to open six Pier 1 stores inside Sears' department stores on the island. The new Pier 1 stores would have 2,000–3,000 square-feet of sales space. The first two were scheduled to open in November of that year in the Sears store in Plaza las Américas in San Juan, and in the Sears Homelife store in the Galería Paseos shopping mall in Cupey. Sears at the time had 10 department stores on the island. Sears and Pier 1 had introduced the store-within-a-store concept in 1993 in Sears’ Mexico stores.
During the mid to late 1990s, Sears' expansion on the island was completed with an investment of more than $21 million, enabling the local operation to expand its local footprint considerably. This would include the opening of a Sears Brand Central in the former two-story Velasco location at the Plaza Las Américas shopping mall after the department store chain had closed in 1995. From 1993 to 1999, Sears grew from four to 10 in locations and more than doubled its square footage on the island.
On January 24, 1999, it was reported that the Sears store at the Plaza las Américas shopping mall in San Juan had sold more than any other Sears store in the world.