For the casual observer asking me where the new Boscov’s store is located at Meadowbrook Mall, the easiest answer is it is located in the former site of Sears. Of course, Boscov’s covers a whole lot more than the old footprint of Sears as the biggest business to ever open in the city’s retail hub.

 

Here is the thing for all of you folks who enjoy the old nostalgia trips with businesses here in Bridgeport and beyond. There was another anchor store in the same spot before Sears. It was likely either an original when the mall opened in 1982 or came just a year or so later.

 

Even better? Despite it having a pretty heavy regional footprint, it did not last long in the city.

 

Anyone remember Bon-Ton? Yep, that was the store that was in place prior to Sears and Boscov’s. As for the exact date it started and the exact date it closed, that is unknown.

 

Records from the City of Bridgeport’s Finance Department are generally not spot on in many instances prior to 2000, and such is the case here. What I do know is that Bon-Ton was gone by 1990, or eight years after the mall opened.

 

How do I know that?

 

I asked the unofficial historian of most things Meadowbrook Mall. That would be Bridgeport resident and former Meadowbrook Mall Property Manager Marcello Lalama started his time at the mall in 1990 and

 recalls just what was in that spot.

 

“Sears was the store in place when I started,” said Lalama. “Bon-Ton was already gone.”

 

And Sears was there for a while. Lalama in 1990, or for that matter probably well into his career that lasted until the start of 2019, probably never saw the demise of Sears. It was THE retail giant and the location at the mall survived for decades.

 

Then, it was gone. Its last official day at the Meadowbrook Mall was March 27, 2017. The last official day of Bon-Ton, again, is unknown. Perhaps someone reading this worked there back in the day and can provide a little better timeline as to when it closed down and why it went out of business.

 

The reason it is a bit perplexing is that in the 1980s – when Bon-Ton opened shop and then closed shop in the city – this particular retail chain was thriving. In fact, the store’s origins go back to 1898 and continued into the 1900s and 2000s with dozens of stores, including its home state of Pennsylvania and here in West Virginia.

 

What makes its closure locally unique is that the chain was thriving with acquisitions and growth. In a history summary of the store, it showed that in 1996 they had a fiscal year sales total of $607.4 million. And that was with roughly 66 stores.

 

By that time, they were long gone from Bridgeport. However, the company also made a return to the Meadowbrook Mall in a very unique situation that came up during Lalama’s time with the company.

 

While there were no anchor store openings, one of the Anchors – Elder-Beerman – was acquired by Bon-Ton. Lalama remembers that taking place.

 

“I definitely recall all of that taking place, but I never recalled any talk about them changing the name to Bon-Ton. Had they done that, it would have been really odd because it was more than a decade before Bon-Ton had come and went,” said Lalama. “… There may have been a few smaller stores that I can’t recall leave and come back, but there was never an anchor store so that would have been unique.”

 

As it turned out, Bon-Ton’s acquisition of Elder-Beerman did not include changing the store names. Instead, all 69 Elder-Beerman stores now under the umbrella of Bon-Ton remained the same.

 

One thing did end up changing. Bon-Ton went from highly profitable to heavily struggling. By the 2010s, the early writing was on the wall that the end may be at hand. By 2018, the end was at hand.

 

The end became official on n Feb. 4. At that time, Bon-Ton, and its subsidiaries – one of which was Elder-Beerman – filed for a court-supervised financial restructuring under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This was done in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. The liquidation of assets was part of the bankruptcy.

 

The final assets were sold in Bridgeport and Elder-Beerman – and its parent company Bon-Ton – had its final day August 29, 2018. The space remained empty, aside from an occasional seasonal vendor, until Marshall’s relocated and took up a large portion of the former space.

 

In a sense, Bon-Ton did make a comeback and just did it by not changing the name of the store it acquired. And in a sense, it did what it did previously – it failed. The second time around, however, it was the entire chain as opposed to just the Bridgeport location.

 

Looking back, I still cannot recall going into the store. My only recollection of the mall and that space is Sears. Lalama, who still gets mall questions regularly including from yours truly, said it is a forgotten anchor store by many.

 

“I guess a lot of whether people remember depends on the age of the person. I’ve talked to a lot of people that knew about the store, but I never saw it. It just wasn’t there very long, and I think more people have no idea it was there as to those who knew it was there,” said Lalama. “Now, Boscov’s will be the third anchor in that spot, not the second.”

 

Editor's Note: Shown above is an entrance to an old Bon-Ton similar to what was at the Meadowbrook Mall, while former Property Manager Marcello Lalama is shown below in a Ben Queen Photography file photo.