Former Chain Store Re-Uses

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cwerdna

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https://www.tivocommunity.com/community/index.php?threads/former-chain-store-re-uses.493670/ has had such a thread going on since 2012. To quote the OP there:
Inspired by something in the Best Buy thread:

I'm looking for what took the place of various closed chain stores/restaurants/etc. in your area.

Here, one former Circuit City is a Harley-Davidson dealer, and another will become an Ashley Furniture HomeStore this coming week.

What about where you are? Who is occupying your former Circuit City, CompUSA and other big name but now closed stores?
I'll start. A Blockbuster Video store in my area now is occupied but an Armed Forces Career Center and Bonchon (known for Korean chicken). Next door was a Radio Shack but it got replaced by "Prestige Portraits", I think. Next to it was a Payless ShoeSource but it's now an Action Urgent Care.

At my local large mall, the Montgomery Ward (aka Monkey Ward) went under ages ago and got replaced by Target. There was a Sears on the other end that closed and only got partly re-occupied by Living Spaces. Previously, the Sears spot had other dept stores in its place like Bullock's and Nordstrom's, I think.

Ages ago, there was Kmart in my city near the above mall. It closed and got replaced by Kohl's. Now the closest Kmart to me is about an hour drive away.
 
In the city across the river from me, there is a former W.T Grant department store that is now a Rite Aid, a former Grand Union supermarket that is now a Family Dollar, a former Italian food restaurant that, 45 years later, is...a different Italian food restaurant. One of the first Central Markets (now Price Chopper Supermarket) is now an auto parts store, after decades as a furniture store. The little diner where I ate as a kid, under which a creek runs, is a beauty salon (or was, anyway - we'll see) , and the gas station and car wash near them are... a gas station and car wash.
 
There was a local PW Supermarket but they closed ALL their stores (https://www.mercurynews.com/2010/09/09/pw-market-abruptly-shuts-down-remaining-sites/). There was also some bank connected to it but don't remember the name.

An Office Max, AT&T Store, Chipotle, Peet's Coffee and Union Bank now occupy that area. The AT&T Store spot was formerly occupied by Pinkberry.

The building that connects to all that (was all part of the same building) was a Rite AId (and I think Payless before it). For some reason, that whole thing was torn down and rebuilt. Now it's a Whole Foods. I remember driving my 350Z into the parking lot to check out the pile of rubble. I ended up w/a flat tire the next morning due to a screw in it, probably picked up in the parking lot from the demolition. :( I'm now quite wary of driving thru/near demolition or construction sites.
 
The Appleton K-mart that went under 3 decades ago is a grown over empty parking lot with a fence around it.

The Big Lots that went under is now an empty grassy lot

There are about a dozen places that have gone under that are now empty lots.
 
Oilpan4 said:
I wonder if the ones that got looted and burned will rebuild?

Some are out of business.

Like everything if there is an economic reason to be in business they (or another business) will eventually come back.

The trouble is we have retailed ourselves to death, not a single building project happens in this area without the local government funding it.

When I was a kid there was much less retail, people earned higher wages (before inflation) home loans were double digits, the local government didn’t loan money
and the state had a larger (and much younger) population.

I really can’t comprehend how we can expect the sheer amount of excess retail to survive in the environment of last year let alone today.
 
rmay635703 said:
Oilpan4 said:
I wonder if the ones that got looted and burned will rebuild?

Some are out of business.

Like everything if there is an economic reason to be in business they (or another business) will eventually come back.

The trouble is we have retailed ourselves to death, not a single building project happens in this area without the local government funding it.

When I was a kid there was much less retail, people earned higher wages (before inflation) home loans were double digits, the local government didn’t loan money
and the state had a larger (and much younger) population.

I really can’t comprehend how we can expect the sheer amount of excess retail to survive in the environment of last year let alone today.

Yeah we refinanced our house and got 2.7% because of 2 reasons. We put $9,000 down and the securities markets are flooded with cash right now.
We likely won't see rates this low again in our lifetimes.
 
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