We visited the only remaining Sears department store in New York City - and saw first-hand why the company continues to struggle

Bethany Biron/Business Insider

The entrance to Sears in Brooklyn, New York.

• Though Sears narrowly escaped its demise when it was bought out of bankruptcy by ESL Investments in February, the ailing department store is still showing signs of struggling.
• The subsidiaries of Sears Holdings Corporation, including Kmart, are now operated by parent company Transform Holdco LLC. In June, Transform Holdco LLC acquired the outstanding shares of Sears Hometown and Outlet Stores.
• We visited the only standing Sears department store in New York City to see why the beleaguered company continues to face issues.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

It's been a tough year for department stores, but particularly for Sears.

The 126-year-old company is hanging by a thread after narrowly escaping liquidation. In February, Sears chairman Eddie Lampert won court approval to buy Sears out of bankruptcy, ultimately allowing 400 stores to stay open and preserving 45,000 jobs.

Though Lampert's Hail Mary pass prevented Sears from closing its doors for good, the company is still gasping for air. In April, Sears revoked its life insurance policies for 90,000 retirees, a move that is expected to leave many individuals ineligible for additional coverage.

Read more: Sears is reportedly life insurance policies for some of its 90,000 retirees as the retailer continues to scramble

That same month, the company shuttered its "store of the future" in Oak Brook, Illinois, fully liquidating its inventory and closing the doors for good only six months after reopening. The demise of the store - which took a year to renovate and was intended to be a prototype for a modernized Sears store - is telling for the future of the company, GlobalData Retail managing director Neil Saunders said in a statement in April.

"It underlines the fact that Sears does not have a credible plan for its long-term survival," Saunders said. "Making stores a bit nicer and reducing space are sensible steps, but they do not represent a holistic solution."

In addition to experimenting with store design in the past year, Sears also tested concepts like a Sears-Kmart hybrid store, which opened in Brooklyn, New York in June 2018. Though the store is still standing, the format remains just as clunky and disorganized a year later.

Here's what we saw on a recent visit to the Brooklyn store: