Old JC Penney's ad

[Jeff]

Monterey Park's basement stairs were located in the middle of the store.

El Monte's former JCPenney is this way too.

[tkaye]

The stairs down to the lower level were right in the center after you entered the front door though. Is this typical for this style of JCPenney store?

I think this is a fairly common design feature of many small and medium-sized "Main Street" department stores. The Kirkland building was built in 1929, and I believe it was occupied by Penney's from the start. Keep in mind many downtown Penney (and Sears) locations were move-ins to existing buildings.

J.C. Penney opened its Tacoma location in the Frye Building (built 1914) at 1114 Broadway in 1930. The Italianate building was previously a business block housing a clothing store, bakery, and meat market over the years. According to the building permit files, Penney's spent $30,000 to remodel the building into a department store layout. James Cash Penney himself visited the store in 1934. Five years later, the store was expanded to overtake the second floor of the adjacent Dave Gross Block. Here is the building in 1956 shortly after a $100,000 remodel. In 1957, the facade was outfitted with the classic "J.C. Penney Co." neon sign, valued at $750. This is the store in mid-1964, a little over a year before the move to the new Tacoma Mall. For most of the '70s and '80s, it served as the offices of the Pierce County Medical Bureau. In 1995, it was remodeled into a billiards hall and is now a sports bar. I'd link to the Google Street View, but the exterior is completely obscured by trees in the photo.

The Tacoma Mall store actually replaced two locations -- the downtown store and the branch at 5424 South Tacoma Way. This building was built in 1924... I'm not sure exactly when Penney's moved in or if they were there from the beginning. I'll need to check some old city directories when I have the chance. A balcony was added in 1940, and remodels took place in 1952 and 1956. There's a funny comment on the building permit card from 1956: "Balcony looks too large for floor space. OK'd by Les." After Penney's left in 1965, it became a Value Village thrift store, which stayed there nearly 30 years. Here's the current street view of the site. I think the exterior looks similar to the Kirkland store, with this building having perhaps more square footage.

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Over in Puyallup, Penney's built this store in 1948. I believe this store stuck around as a catalog outlet until the South Hill Mall store opened in 1991. Some old signage remains on the rear wall.

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In Bremerton, Penney's built this 40,000-square foot store at 302 Pacific Ave. in 1940. Obviously they determined a "Main Street"-style building would have been insufficient for the city's booming population at the start of World War II.

In 1969, Penney's "traded spaces" with the hometown Bremers Department Store, which was located across Burwell Street. Bremers took over Penney's building and Penney's demolished most of the buildings on the block where Bremers was located to make room for a mall-sized store (150,000-square feet) at 234 Pacific Ave., complete with rooftop parking and an auto center on the other side of Second Street. (After JCP left the TBA business, the auto center became a Firestone for several years. It has since been razed.) JCP stayed here until it became the fifth and final anchor in Silverdale's Kitsap Mall in 1989. The building has sat essentially vacant for the past 20 years, with the rooftop parking continuing to operate as a paid lot. The parking business is pretty lucrative in downtown Bremerton as thousands of shipyard workers and ferry commuters converge on a relatively small geographic area each day; because of that, the interior of the store was gutted and turned into a parking garage in 2001. In late 2007, Bellevue developer Ron Sher (noted for his remodel of Crossroads Mall) bought the building for $8 million. Since the real estate downturn, he has backed off his ambitious plans to make an urban shopping center (with supermarket, bookstore, and restaurants) out of the building.

[Jeff]

The Alhambra JCPenney Store was the largest in the area, and closed in 1985 after surviving the opening of the JCPenney store in Plaza Pasadena in 1981 (closed a few years back), but not surviving the opening of the Montebello Town Center store.
323 E. Main St, Alhambra

The El Monte Store closed in the 80's as well. I beleive this was due to the Montebello Town Center store opening. I wasnt too sure on this one too much.
10933 Valley Mall, El Monte, CA

[Brian Lutz]

I think this is a fairly common design feature of many small and medium-sized "Main Street" department stores. The Kirkland building was built in 1929, and I believe it was occupied by Penney's from the start. Keep in mind many downtown Penney (and Sears) locations were move-ins to existing buildings.

Ill have to see if I can figure out exactly when the store closed. I believe the store was around in 1973, but may have closed not long after that. There was already a store at Bellevue Square which had been around for quite a while, and I'm guessing that the opening of Alderwood Mall in 1979 with a large JCPenney store might have been what closed down the Kirkland store. The Bellevue Square store was also expanded to a large anchor store during the conversion to an indoor mall from 1980-84.

[rich]

Even some of their 1950s shopping center stores had functional basements. The stairs were typically in the middle. The c. 1954 Eastgate store outside of Cleveland was like this. It's now occupied by Fish Furniture, which also uses the basement for display.

WT Grant also used this kind of layout in some of its early suburban stores--the Lake Shore Blvd store in Euclid (c. 1949), outside of Cleveland used this layout. The basement was closed off when the chain decided to shrink the merchandise for this store and emphasize soft lines.

[Groceteria]

Even some of their 1950s shopping center stores had functional basements. the stairs were typically in the middle. The c. 1954 Eastgate store outside of Cleveland was like this.

Ditto for Westlake in Daly City CA. It was recently torn down to build a Home Depot.

[Brian Lutz]

The stairs down to the lower level were right in the center after you entered the front door though. Is this typical for this style of JCPenney store?

I think this is a fairly common design feature of many small and medium-sized "Main Street" department stores. The Kirkland building was built in 1929, and I believe it was occupied by Penney's from the start. Keep in mind many downtown Penney (and Sears) locations were move-ins to existing buildings.

Based on my findings, I'm pretty sure you're right. 1933 and 1934 editions of the East Side Journal I've looked through have ads for this store.

[RandallFlagg]

I love how some of the older stores used stylized P's in the designs like the one above. The others that come to mind that also do this are Montclair and Lakewood. Both have P flower designs. Its really funny to see this design on old stores that are now something else.

This is from live maps. I guess when the second story was added they didn't bother to remove the old logo from the north side, since it wasn't visible anymore.

[Jeff]

Well, I never noticed that before, and I've been to the mall several times. how about that. The mall had expanded too in the 80's, so this logo was on past the time they changed the logo.

[submariner]

That's a brilliant find, kind of like an Easter Egg!

[Dean]

That's a brilliant find, kind of like an Easter Egg!

Indeed!

Randall gets the prize!

Probably one of the most unique finds!

thanks!

[romleys]

Roof Access???

[Brian Lutz]

In regards to this post earlier in the thread, I am currently traveling back up to Seattle from Utah, and when I made a stop in Burley today I got a chance to take a quick look at the JCPenney store I referred to in the prior post. It turns out that the store is not in fact a standalone store as I had first thought, but is part of a very small dead mall known as the Snake River Center, and is an even smaller store than I first thought (Based on checking in Live Maps, the store can't be more than 26,000 square feet or so total.) The interior of the "mall" is closed down, and only a handful of low-rent tenants (a dollar store, a cell phone seller and a payday loan place) remain there. I suspect the Wal-Mart Supercenter across the street probably has something to do with the demise of the mall in question, although it looks like it could have been pretty much gone even before the Wal-Mart (which looked relatively recent) was even built.

As for the JCPenney store itself, it looks like it sold nothing but clothing (I don't even think it had a shoe department) and seemed pretty crammed into its space. I didn't get any pictures of the inside, but did get one of the exterior:

[submariner]

In 1969, Penney's "traded spaces" with the hometown Bremers Department Store, which was located across Burwell Street. Bremers took over Penney's building and Penney's demolished most of the buildings on the block where Bremers was located to make room for a mall-sized store (150,000-square feet) at 234 Pacific Ave., complete with rooftop parking and an auto center on the other side of Second Street.

Interesting! I always passed that building on my way to the ferry and wondered about it... thought it looked too department store-ish for a parking garage!

[Super S]

I was in Ohio this past week and the old JCPenney auto center doors are still intact at Sandusky Mall.