On Aug. 30, an extensively rehabbed historical mansion on Division Street in the Gold Coast sold for $4 million. It’s the 51st home in Chicago and the suburbs to sell for $4 million or more so far in 2021.

In four of the six years that Crain’s has been keeping a tally of $4 million-plus sales, the 50th property has sold in December. One year the 50th sale was in mid-November, and in one year it was October. That was 2018, which turned out to be a record year, with 73 homes sold at $4 million or more. 

Right now, October is weeks away. If the market keeps up its current pace, 2021’s sales total will surpass 2018 by at least 4 sales. 

Leading the growth is sales of downtown properties: So far this year, there have been 19 sales at $4 million or more in the area between North Avenue and Randolph Street, compared with 11 in all of 2020. Thanks to that year’s widespread pandemic-related shutdowns and spasms of social unrest, the upper-end market showed a pronounced shift toward suburban buying.

“There was a lot of pent-up demand then,” said Susan Miner, an agent with Premier Relocation who has represented buyer or seller in several of the big transactions, most recently the buyers who paid nearly $5.73 million for a condominium at the No. 9 Walton tower. 

“Now,” Miner said, “you’re seeing sailboats on the lake, people sitting outside at restaurants, concerts and sports again. People want to be part of that again.” 

Some of the high-priced downtown sales are condos in the just-opened St. Regis whose buyers put them under contract as far back as 2017, prior to the pandemic. But the majority of the downtown sales, both condos and houses, went under contract in 2021. 

The rush of big-dollar purchases doesn’t necessarily mean that sellers are walking away with big proceeds. 

The seller of the Division Street mansion, Bob Loquercio, told Crain’s in 2019 that he had invested at least $5.5 million in purchasing and rehabbing the early-1900s home. That’s $1.5 million more than a buyer paid him for the house this week. 

In Lake Forest, a nearly 12,000-square-foot mansion on Green Bay Road sold Aug. 24 for $4.8 million, or about 88 percent of the nearly $5.5 million that the sellers paid for it in 2011. 

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“Any energy package needs to lead with ethics and transparency, needs time to be vetted and must end carbon emissions by a date certain,” spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said. “HB3666, a bill that was not agreed to by environmentalists nor negotiated with all stakeholders, falls short of that standard, and if it reaches the governor’s desk, he will veto it.”

Negotiators, however, are continuing discussions and hoping to produce a compromise that could be voted on as early as Tuesday.

But Pritzker cautioned against quick action. “A thousand-page energy bill affecting both ratepayers and utility interests that have been the subject of a deferred prosecution agreement should not be released on a Monday and voted on the next day,” Abudayyeh said.

Where that leaves matters, as negotiators face a looming deadline for the closure of Exelon’s Byron nuclear plant, is uncertain. Likewise, hundreds of millions in ratepayer funds slated for new solar development is subject to an imminent deadline to be returned to ratepayers without an amendment to current law.

Environmentalists, whom Pritzker has staunchly backed, are rattling their sabers even as organized labor and energy companies press for concessions that would allow fossil fuel power plants to stay open longer than the governor wants.

“This bill must match the urgency of the moment,” Sierra Club Illinois Director Jack Darin said in a statement. “While it includes many of our priorities to grow an equitable, clean-energy economy across Illinois, it does not currently have a decarbonization plan that holds the state’s biggest climate polluters accountable or protects our frontline communities.”

The big sticking point continues to be the future of the Prairie State coal-fired plant in southern Illinois. Some labor interests want it to be able to operate if it invests in technology to capture its carbon emissions, but Pritzker wants a definitive closure date.

Up to now, there have been enough votes supporting the Prairie State position to keep a bill from passing.

“Scientists around the world have said we are at a ‘code red for humanity’ and surely they would agree that we cannot wait to 2040 to cut the emissions of Prairie State Energy Campus—the nation’s seventh-largest polluter—in half,” Abudayyeh said.

Imminent action on the bill would seem to be unlikely, given the strength of the governor’s statement. But, at least in Illinois energy politics, this has been a process unlike the many others that preceded it.

Senate President Don Harmon has tried to marry labor’s interests with the greens. He was sanguine Monday evening.

“The Senate president remains optimistic that we’ll find the winning balance of reliable, renewable and affordable energy policies for the people of Illinois,” a spokesman said.

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What does diversity, equity and inclusion mean to your organization?

Gloria Cotton: At inQUEST, diversity refers to all aspects of any/all human beings, known and unknown, evident and obscure. Equity refers to the resources and support people need to be successful and to feel included that meet the needs of their unique diversity. Inclusion refers to the experience people have in working and being with others and the behaviors that result in them feeling welcome, valued, respected, heard, understood and supported for who they are as human beings, for the job/work they do and how they do it. We want everyone to know they have a right to expect to be seen and heard for who they are, that they add and have the potential to add value, that they’ll feel safe to be themselves when we agree or disagree, and that our supplying the accommodations they need is one of the ways we prove we see and hear them individually, not stereotypically or unrealistically.

Samantha Lewandowski: DEI means acceptance for all who are employed with TAWANI Enterprises, now and in the future. Our staff represents a range of races, nationalities, sexualities, genders, religions and ages, and we value each person coming from a different background with unique experiences. We encourage our staff to use empathy in all work situations to build a stronger, more connected workforce. Jennifer N. Pritzker, our president and CEO, has publicly supported inclusion and anti-discrimination legislation and practices and truly leads by example in creating a welcoming environment for all.

Rheaana Guess: At Delta Dental of Illinois, DEI doesn’t just mean hiring, retaining and promoting diverse talent, it also means creating an environment where employees feel seen, heard, respected, understood and motivated to contribute. We strive to be a safe place where constructive two-way communication and cross-cultural understanding empowers all employees to be authentic. This enables employees to better connect with and understand each other, our clients and those in the community we serve.

Pamela Moore-Thompson: UScellular embraces diversity as one of the foundational values important to our strong culture. We commit daily to openly supporting the individual strengths of each of our associates and valuing the uniqueness of their perspectives. We know that having a diverse workforce across all levels and within all functions of our organization is important to serving customers in our local communities, attracting extraordinary talent and creating a culture that’s inclusive of differing experiences and perspectives.

What’s the biggest challenge your organization faces when seeking to recruit and hire a diverse workforce?

Lewandowski: Our biggest challenge is connecting with a diverse audience. We post openings on a variety of job boards to attract the best talent, rather than relying on one source to bring in prospective candidates. Because we’re a small organization, it can be a challenge competing with larger organizations looking for the same great talent. We try to separate ourselves in the recruiting process by illuminating our core values, generous benefits, entrepreneurial opportunities and a warm and welcoming experience for all applicants.

Moore-Thompson: Many talented employees and candidates have reset their baseline for what they want from an employer. Societal influences, such as COVID-19, have had a significant impact on the labor market. Feedback from current associates, as well as applicants, suggests that flexibility is a high priority, and they feel—and we agree—that flexibility has been earned over the last 18 months.

Guess: Recruiting in the western suburbs, where we have our headquarters, and in the insurance industry in general can be a challenge. Through our DEI work, development programs and benefit offerings, we strive to present candidates a dynamic workplace environment where they can grow and develop. Additionally, we’ve introduced a hybrid/remote work model, which helps attract more diverse talent.

How does your organization promote diversity in recruiting employees?

Moore-Thompson: We focus on communicating the robust benefits that job seekers will experience when becoming a part of our organization. We also have strong relationships with partner organizations that help us access a broad group of diverse talent. We participate in events that attract diverse candidates, recruit through inclusive organizations and diversify our employment advertising to reach talent in local communities. Our equitable recruiting practices include pursuing diverse interview teams, compelling job descriptions aimed at attracting broad groups of interested candidates, and diversity and inclusion training for all leaders of people. We practice continuous improvement and regularly analyze every step of our recruiting process to ensure that we’re appealing to a broad and diverse group of potential candidates.

Guess: We’re very intentional and strategic. We don’t simply post a job and cross our fingers. We target local diverse professional organizations and university groups to make sure we’re connecting directly with our candidates. We find this more focused approach shows potential employees that we’re serious about our commitment to recruiting diverse talent, and more efficient yields result.

Lewandowski: We emphasize education and professional skills. Throughout the interview process, we learn how a candidate wants to add value to our organization, and how we can provide value to their career. We let them know that we invest in our employees by providing them with the tools they need to be successful and promote from within when skills align with an opportunity.

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One of the fastest-growing Bitcoin ATM operators is expanding in Illinois.

CoinFlip, which operates 2,700 ATMs around the country, is moving into the old Post Office in Chicago. The company was founded in 2015 and has nearly 200 employees with plans to add more by the end of next year.

The company got money from the state to make a long-term commitment to stay in Illinois and make $17 million in capital investments in return for nearly $1.7 million in economic tax credits.

“This marks the largest cryptocurrency lease here in the state of Illinois, and this further cements CoinFlip as a homegrown company that was founded and built right here in Chicago,” CEO Ben Weiss said.

The company generated $50 million in revenue from transaction fees last year, a number that is expected to double this year, Weiss said.

CoinFlip was named the 2021 fastest-growing company in Chicago by Crain’s Chicago Business.

“Illinois already has the talent and the infrastructure in place to be a global hub to this growing industry, and I hope that we continue to make progress toward achieving that goal,” said Rep. Margaret Croke, D-Chicago.

Illinois is home to 58 blockchain and cryptocurrency companies, with an anticipated 25 percent increase in jobs around the state by 2025.

Legislators passed House Bill 3968 earlier this year, which would establish digital asset rules for banking services as well as effectively allow financial companies in Illinois to apply for a charter to operate and deal in crypto-assets. The bill is awaiting Senate approval.

According to a CNBC survey, more than 10 percent of respondents said they’re invested in cryptocurrency, ranking the digital coins just behind real estate, stocks, mutual funds and bonds.

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Among the charges: that both companies offer deliveries from restaurants without their consent, mislead customers about various fees at the outset and inflate menu prices well above what restaurants charge in person. 

It’s a surprising about-face from March 2020, when Lightfoot joined Grubhub officials at a news conference, applauding a temporary suspension of commission payments due from restaurants. This June, the city also publicized a $50 Grubhub gift card promotion to encourage Chicagoans to get vaccinated at home. More recently, the city has also split from others like San Francisco and New York, which made caps on the fees apps can charge permanent. Though some aldermen wanted Chicago’s 15% cap on fees to be made permanent, City Council extended them only through December. 

“We are deeply disappointed by Mayor Lightfoot’s decision to file this baseless lawsuit,” Grubhub spokesman Grant Klinzman said in an emailed statement. “Every single allegation is categorically wrong and we will aggressively defend our business practices. We look forward to responding in court and are confident we will prevail.”

DoorDash described the suit against it as “baseless.”

“It is a waste of taxpayer resources, and Chicagoans should be outraged. DoorDash has stood with the City of Chicago throughout the pandemic, waiving fees for restaurants, providing $500,000 in direct grants, creating strong earning opportunities, and delivering food and other necessities to communities in need. This lawsuit will cost taxpayers and deliver nothing.”

The complaints were filed today in Cook County.

“These practices continued unabated during the pandemic when restaurants were struggling to survive,” Acting Business Affairs and Consumer Protection Commissioner Kenneth Meyer said in a press release. “We heard from the hospitality industry and Chicago’s consumers about these unfair practices and this action demonstrates we will hold noncomplying businesses accountable.” 

In a statement, Illinois Restaurant Association CEO Sam Toia said he has long advocated “that any third party delivering restaurants’ food—or using their names, logos and menus—without consent is a serious issue for the industry. We appreciate the city of Chicago taking action to help restaurants protect their brands and businesses. Hopefully, this step will lead to all parties coming together to find a permanent resolution with guardrails in place moving forward.”

Both Grubhub and DoorDash, the city alleges, “advertise order and delivery services from unaffiliated restaurants without their consent, leaving restaurants to repair reputational damage and resolve consumer complaints” caused by both companies, the release said. They also “lure customers into a bait-and-switch” with small upfront delivery fees at the beginning of the transaction, and then additional “misleading fees” at the end, according to the release, which said, “This increases the total cost of delivery by as much as six times the amount initially advertised.” Both companies also “hide that menu prices on their platforms are often significantly higher” than if customers ordered straight from the restaurant, the city said. 

“It is deeply concerning and unfortunate that these companies broke the law” during the pandemic especially, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in the release. It amounts to taking “advantage of restaurants and consumers who were struggling to stay afloat.” 

The individual case against Grubhub alleges the company violated the city’s emergency 15% cap on restaurant commissions during the pandemic and in addition created “impostor websites” for restaurants that routed unsuspecting customers to Grubhub instead, the city said. The city added that the suit also stated that the company’s campaigns to “save restaurants” during the pandemic simultaneously forced mom and pop businesses to “extend their contracts, cover the cost of promotions, and pay Grubhub full commissions on all orders.” 

DoorDash, the suit against the company alleges, imposed a misleading $1.50 Chicago fee on every order that implied the charge was required by or paid to the city, when “in fact DoorDash was the sole beneficiary.” The company also misled customers into thinking they were tipping delivery drivers, when in fact the tip subsidized “DoorDash’s own payment to its drivers,” the city said in its release.  

The city invited restaurants and customers that want “to inform the city about their experience with meal delivery companies” to email [email protected]   

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“Your concerns related to the existing congestion on Maple Street, the current context of predominantly lower-rise structures in the surrounding blocks and overall compatibility of this proposal at this location were carefully considered by both the developer and my office,” wrote Hopkins, who represents the neighborhood.

One other reason residents at 111 W. Maple might have opposed the project: Fifield’s tower would have blocked views from west-facing units. The project also would have included an eight-story community center for the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, its neighbor to the south. The high-rise would have risen on the north side of the site.

Fifield hasn’t ruled out another revision to its plans. The developer is considering whether it could move the tower farther south, an idea that seemed acceptable to residents of 111 W. Maple, chairman and CEO Steve Fifield wrote in a text.

“We need to study it to see if feasible,” he wrote.

Fifield needs a zoning change from the city for any big development on the site, a process that includes community meetings and requires the approval of the Plan Commission and Chicago City Council. Under the City Council’s long-standing custom of aldermanic privilege, aldermen can effectively veto proposed projects in their wards even before the Plan Commission considers them. Fifield’s decision to withdraw its plans takes the pressure off Hopkins to formally reject its proposal.

Hopkins did not respond to a request for comment.  

If approved, the Maple Street project would have been Fifield’s only active apartment development in Chicago. The firm is spending more time these days pursuing opportunities in other markets like Denver, Phoenix and Tampa. 

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“Why would we do that?” Torres told the school board Wednesday morning about eliminating the screener. “Because we trust our families and trust our communities to protect each other.”

The district will bring back simultaneous instruction in classrooms where some children are sent home under quarantine orders and others aren’t, Torres also said in Tuesday’s letter. The return of simultaneous instruction — in which teachers are required to do double-duty and teach some children remotely and others in the classroom — has been a lingering point of disagreement with the teachers’ union, which has called for a more robust remote option.

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The new guidelines come as the city’s teachers union and some Chicago aldermen and parents’ groups press for stronger safety protocols, including a more widely available virtual option and strict measures for quarantining and closing school buildings — thresholds the district has argued would needlessly disrupt learning. The union’s top leadership has said that educators, who returned to buildings this week, will be present for students on the first day — but it has not ruled out future action if an agreement between the school district and union isn’t reached.

Chicago currently is offering a “virtual academy” option only for students with specific medical needs, in line with a requirement from the Illinois school board that limits when districts can offer remote options. Few families have signed up, and some have complained the process was confusing.

But at Wednesday’s meeting, Torres said he made a commitment to union President Jesse Sharkey that if public health officials find community transmission has reached dangerous levels, the interim CEO would personally approach Gov. J.B. Pritzker to advocate for an emergency declaration allowing broader remote learning.

In the Tuesday guidance to parents, the district also said it will offer each of its employees a COVID test every week as part of its voluntary surveillance testing program. It will also test weekly all students whose families sign a release form at the start of the school year — as long as community transmission rates remain moderate to high. Those tests will be free to any employees or students experiencing symptoms, the district said.

The union had accused the district of trying to walk back a commitment to test all students — shared in an earlier letter to parents — during reopening agreement negotiations. Some educators have also said that last spring, opportunities to get tested often came while they were in the middle of teaching classes, resulting in a high opt-out rate for the surveillance program.

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The district and union have also failed to reach agreement on protocol for what happens when COVID-19 cases are reported in a classroom. Largely in line with federal guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the district has said unvaccinated students who are in close contact with a positive case must quarantine for 14 days, but vaccinated students may return to classrooms as long as they don’t have symptoms. The union would like to see stricter quarantine measures and more done to ensure 3 feet of social distancing when possible, not “when convenient,” as Sharkey put it Wednesday — from moving lunches outdoors to transferring large classes to roomier spaces.

“There are many steps we can be taking that we aren’t,” he told the school board.

What safety measures to implement amid a rise in cases due to the contagious delta variant continues to be a vexing issue for districts across the country.

According to a Center for Reinventing Public Education research brief released Monday, a quarter of the country’s 100 largest school districts now include some sort of preventative testing measure for students and staff and two-thirds of those districts — including Chicago Public Schools — now have mask mandates. But when to quarantine students, for how long, and how to educate those at home is an issue in flux.

According to the researchers, the country’s largest districts continue to take different approaches to the length of quarantine time and whether vaccinated students are exempt. In addition, 55 of the 100 districts reviewed now offer a full-time remote option for all students, not just the medically fragile.

Other protocol updates shared this week include:

• The district will not require temperature checks at the schools entry because a fever isn’t the most reliable way to tell if a student has contacted COVID-19.
• For students with disabilities, parents can apply for a cloth face covering accommodation if medically necessary. The accommodation form must be completed by a medical professional, and submitted to the school’s principal or school nurse.
• For students with hands-on services in their IEPs like speech-language pathology, physical therapy, and occupational therapy, the district has given therapists medical masks and face shields. In the case of speech therapy, the district has given therapists clear masks.
• The district this week reiterated its plans for HEPA air purifiers for each occupied classroom, a hospital-grade disinfectant sprayer for every school, and hand sanitizer stations in high-traffic areas.
• Chicago will require proof of vaccination or weekly testing for student athletes in grades 5 through 12.

Cassie Walker Burke and Mila Koumpilova write for Chalkbeat Chicago, a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Samantha Smylie contributed to this report.

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That now is changing. In a ruling last week, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board dictated terms of a new lease for Metra in which it will pay Amtrak roughly $1 million more a year to use Union Station as its primary commuter rail hub. The two parties still have some things to resolve, but the biggest impediment was getting a deal covering day-to-day operations.

A second boon has come in the easing of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Until COVID really is gone or under solid control, the number of people going through Union Station will be significantly lower than it was. Fewer people means less money. Which means less gets done. Some preliminary work, such as renovating the station’s upstairs headhouse office space and beginning to restore and reopen long-shut retail areas, had started a couple of years ago. COVID brought that to a halt.

Those trends now are in the process of reversing, too.  No one knows yet for sure when and how much the downtown office market will revive. But Union Station has a real geographic edge. It’s located just a couple of blocks from the hottest office building in the city—the huge, and rapidly filling, Old Post Office. And it’s not far from the greater Fulton Market area that’s home to the city’s burgeoning tech community.

That means more business—both from commuters who may want a place to shop or eat before catching the train and from the increasing number of people who live in the area and could use good retail opportunities.

The third factor working in Union Station’s favor now is the pending $1 trillion federal infrastructure bill—assuming feuding Washington Democrats finally get the measure to the desk of President Joe Biden, that is. Included are tens of billions of dollars for Amtrak, some of which could be headed here under the right circumstances.

Amtrak has plenty of at least preliminary plans for Union Station that could benefit from that windfall. For instance, in 2019 it applied for $40 million to repurpose former mail docks for passenger use, expanding station capacity, and another $30 million for renovation of the cluttered passenger waiting area. Both got sidetracked by COVID and are only the first phase of other work that eventually could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars—work that Amtrak somehow will have to get done if it’s serious about bulking up its Chicago-based network of long-distance trains.

Amtrak and others also have been able to get Congress to approve funds for Create projects such as in the 75th Street Corridor. That would allow some Metra trains to be redirected to LaSalle Street Station, freeing up space in Union Station. But numerous other Create projects, which separate freight and passenger trains and speed service, are awaiting funding—in the new infrastructure bill, or somewhere else.

Chicago surely will get some of that money in the infrastructure bill. But how much depends on, for instance, how much of its new resources Amtrak spends on the Northeast Corridor as opposed to the Midwest. It’s there that the lack of a powerful patron to push the right buttons hurts.

“Union Station certainly needs a champion,” confided one transit leader here. “It’s a challenge to get officials to focus on this.”

Former Mayor Rahm Emanuel certainly was focused on that subject. He’s a prime reason some of the initial work at Union Station actually got done before COVID hit. But Emanuel now is brushing up on his Japanese. Successor Lori Lightfoot seems to have other priorities, with area members of Congress busy with other items on their plates.

Bottom line: There’s a chance for real action at Union Station right now. Some of the stars have aligned. But not all of them. This project is waiting for someone powerful to really take it on. Any takers?

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Chicago home sales continue to rise, but there’s a twist in that fire-hot streak. The city announces the next round of winners as part of its Invest South/West initiative. And Chicago-area Disney Stores are closing but they’re set to make a comeback.

Crain’s Chicago Business editor Ann Dwyer takes us behind the headlines.

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Crain’s Headlines is a joint production between WTTW and Crain’s Chicago Business. It airs every Monday through Thursday on the WTTW News program “Chicago Tonight.” 

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Consider the retail landscape after the Civil War. If you wanted to buy something, you visited a store: a general store, a department store, a grocery store. Aaron Montgomery Ward changed all that. A marketing whiz who spent his early years working as a traveling salesman, Ward recognized that rural customers often paid significantly higher prices for consumer goods because of the markup of countless middle men.

He set out to change this. In 1872, Ward sent out his first mail-order catalog, which offered a selection of coveted consumer goods at rock-bottom prices. As the historian William Cronon has observed, this strategy relied on several interrelated innovations. But the most important one circumvented the need for conventional storefronts by embracing the post office. With no retail footprint and no sales forces, Ward didn’t need to pay rents or salaries. Instead, he sunk the savings into building massive distribution centers in major cities.

His innovations did not stop there. When consumers purchased goods, they didn’t pay for them until they had arrived in the mail. If the customer decided they didn’t like, say, the canned ham they had ordered — or the baby carriage, paint brush, milking machine or girl’s dress — they could simply send the goods back, no questions asked.

These novel approaches to retailing proved wildly popular. Soon, the company known as Montgomery Ward was circulating a massive catalog containing a cornucopia of consumer goods — and so were two other entrepreneurs named Richard Sears and Alvah Roebuck. By the end of the 19th century, these Chicago companies distributed catalogs that ran well over a thousand pages.

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It’s hard to understate the ambition of these two companies, which quickly became the largest retailers in the world. They went into manufacturing, offering goods under their own label. And they offered a breadth of items that exceeded Amazon’s seemingly endless inventories. Sears-Roebuck, for example, began selling house kits, using railroad boxcars to ship all the components of a modern home. These would then be assembled on site by the buyer.

At a certain point, though, the catalog sales of both these companies began to plateau: There was a limit to what you could sell by mail. Having driven many conventional retailers out of business, these companies now launched an ambitious plan to colonize conventional retail as well. They already had the goods, the pricing power, and the distribution network.

The new strategy evolved in the early 1920s, when one of Montgomery Ward’s vice presidents, Robert Wood, began pushing the idea. A military man, Wood had a talent for logistics and supplying, becoming acting quartermaster general of the United States during World War I.

In 1920 and 1921, he began opening modest outlet stores in the company’s distribution centers, ostensibly to liquidate surplus goods that had piled up during a recent recession. These proved very profitable, but his fellow executives resisted Wood’s plans to for a vast expansion. He was fired in the fall of 1924 for his zeal.

Two months later, he was hired at Sears-Roebuck, which had surpassed Montgomery-Ward as the biggest retailer of all time. Wood promptly opened a new store in Chicago that would bear the Sears-Roebuck name. The Wall Street Journal described the venture as “an entirely new departure” for the company, but also predicting success.

This was an understatement. Rather than compete with existing department stores and chain stores located in urban retail districts, Wood instead opened his first stores as adjuncts to existing distribution centers located on the outer reaches of cities.

Architectural historian Richard Longstreth has described the move as a radical break with conventional wisdom. Would shoppers actually make a separate trip to a Sears store? Absolutely, as it turned out. Consumers already loyal to the Sears brand flocked to the new establishments, drawn by the low prices and immense range of goods.

Soon, Wood began purchasing acreage on the outskirts of other cities, opening dozens of additional stores no longer coupled with distribution centers. This strategy of building “lone wolf stores,” Longstreth observed, seemed to “defy logic.”

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Wood’s triumph is easy to understand in retrospect. He invariably located the new stores where land was cheap and plentiful, but still accessible to autos and mass transit. Thanks to the surfeit of space, Sears could build massive, distinctive buildings that came to define the Sears brand: sleek Art Deco structures of two or three stories (plus a basement), adorned with a trademark tower. Unlike conventional department stores, which often occupied several discontinuous buildings, each Sears Store was a self-contained emporium, one that catered to men as much as the female shoppers considered the mainstay of the retail trade.

Most important of all, perhaps, was the fact that Wood devoted huge amounts of acreage to parking, guaranteeing easy access for the growing number of shoppers with cars.

Montgomery-Ward, realizing its mistake, quickly followed suit within a couple years of the first Sears store. Though the Great Depression put a dent in the companies’ plans, both eventually resumed their expansion, constructing hundreds of stores around the country that gradually surpassed the mail-order business.

Ever the cutting-edge innovator, Sears pioneered other novel approaches in these stores. In 1934, it again broke with conventional wisdom when it opened its first windowless store. The design sought to create a hermetic shopping experience that drew shoppers into the store – and kept them there. These and other innovations anticipated many of the key retail revolutions of the postwar era, including the much-maligned mall.

In the process, the two companies revolutionized retail not once, but twice: first as mail-order companies, and later, as brick-and-mortar chain stores. Amazon clearly intends to pull the same trick. Given how well Amazon’s strategy of repurposing 19th-century strategies for the digital age has worked out, there’s no reason to think they won’t succeed yet again.

Stephen Mihm, a professor of history at the University of Georgia, is a contributor to Bloomberg Opinion.

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