Commercial Groundbreaking and Early Retail Buildout
The site at North Tustin Street and East Meats Avenue in Orange, California, was little more than a wide-open lot.
It was commercially zoned but undeveloped when Sears opened a standalone department store there in 1967. That move wasn’t random.
Sears had already spent decades building its name into suburban retail grids, and Orange offered the mix of growing neighborhoods and road access that fit their expansion model…