Kmart World

Spotlight: Kmart - Peachtree City, GA

2019-02-18T20:00:00.000-05:00

400 Crosstown Drive, Peachtree City, GA 30269

Hello and welcome to our first post of 2019 here at Kmart World! Since our last post we made, Kmart and Sears Holdings has gone through a lot of turmoil but they are hopefully now on a path to success. Today we are looking at the Kmart in Peachtree City, Georgia. It was one of the last two Kmart locations left in the state of Georgia. Unfortunately both of the remaining Georgia locations are now closed, leaving none left in the state.

If this Kmart looks a bit different to you on the outside, that's because it is unique to this location. The exterior of this store was completely remodeled and redone in 2009. The store is located in an affluent area and this shopping center named Braelinn Village was remodeled to have an upscale look to it. Over $7 million dollars was spent to remodel the shopping center including added pathways and parking spaces throughout the center for golf carts. It took almost a full year to finish the renovations of the center. The other end of the shopping center has a large format Kroger store that was expanded around the time the shopping center was remodeled. This Kmart store was actually built in 1991 and is only 86,479 square feet.

Unfortunately that modern, upscale look and renovations didn't transfer to the inside of the store. Taking a look at the inside of the store reveals any other typical non-remodeled Kmart that is stuck in the 90's. It features a former Olan Mills Portrait Studio and a large Garden center area. You can tell there used to be a K Cafe to the left when you walked in. It is long gone and the only way to tell it was there is the floor tiles are a slightly different color and the restrooms are still there. This Kmart has some ugly, homemade looking department signs on the walls. There isn't an Auto Center in this store, although there is a tire shop out in the parking lot that could have been a detached Kmart/Penske Auto Center. Other than that there's not too much special about this store.

Enjoy the rest of the pictures and please leave any comments you have, including anyone that knows more about this particular location below. Also be sure to like us on Facebook and check out our sister site Retail World's YouTube page for retail and dead mall videos!

Spotlight: Sears - Las Vegas, NV

2018-10-17T16:06:00.003-04:00

3450 S Maryland Pkwy, Las Vegas, NV 89169

Today we are looking at the Sears located at The Boulevard also known as the Boulevard Mall in sunny Las Vegas, NV. It opened on November 17, 1965 before the construction of the mall was completed. The mall itself wasn't completed and opened until March 1968. The store is a bit unique as it is a two level store but one level is at ground level and the other is at basement level. This is a bit odd as the mall itself is one level and the other two level anchor stores don't have a basement level. The stores auto center is located in a separate building in the stores parking lot. The signage on the exterior of the store was updated within the past couple of years to the current Sears logo. This store has a lot of older design features that a department store built in the last 20-30 years wouldn't have. You'll see some of that in the 100+ pictures we are featuring here.

Historical photo of when the store was built in 1965.

Taken in 2015, compared to the photo above, you can see the original architectural features of the building are still intact. Courtesy of ModTraveler.net

Sears sold this location to a group of investors in October of 2017, as Sears owned its building and large parking lot since the store was built. Now the group of investors are leasing the building back to Sears. The investors are related to the company that currently own the mall Sears is in, which makes things easier for the continued redevelopment of the mall that is currently going on. One of the first things the new owners of the Sears property are doing is trying to develop some of the massive Sears parking lot into pad sites for other businesses like Starbucks, fast food restaurants, among other things.

Areas of the store where merchandise is spread out to try to make it look less empty.

Unfortunately this store seems to be barely hanging on to its life. When we visited this location, the store was dead and almost completely devoid of customers in the middle of the day. There were many associates in the store moving departments around trying to make this large store look full with less inventory. It was kind of reminiscent of the old saying rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic hoping for a different result to the sinking ship. There were large empty areas in the store, the electronics department no longer has electronics, and all of the Sears service areas were gone. There was a maze of empty and closed Sears services on the basement level of the store leading to the restrooms. It was quite eerie having to walk through all of these closed, empty areas just to get to the restrooms. There are closed areas that look to be for optical, portrait studio, watch service, miracle ear, salon, and a couple other area that were for something else. This Sears store is actually the last remaining traditional anchor store in the mall. All of the others have closed within the past 10 years and were replaced by non-traditional stores and other uses.

Entrance to the empty services area.

This mall is located in a area that has a higher rate of crime and some would consider the area a bit shady. Changing demographics helped play a part in the mall losing all of it's anchors except the Sears store. The Sears itself has a security guard that constantly walks around the store. The store seems to be taking more measures to cut down on theft as they were in the process of changing the shoe department from self service with all of the boxes on the sales floor to just having displays shoes out and an associate has to retrieve the size you want from a stock room.

Shoe department is being transitioned away from self service to cut down on theft.

When the store opened in 1965, it was the largest Sears store in the state of Nevada at over 209,000 square feet and over 50 different departments. The store featured a 88,000 square foot main level selling space with outdoor garden center along with a separate 24 car capacity automotive service center with gasoline pumps and an 2,500 space parking lot. The basement level of the store featured the customer convenience center, credit sales department, customer service office, cashier, general offices, employee cafeteria, catalog telephone shopping service, and storage, receiving and shipping departments. The customer convenience center on the basement level offered the following services- cash checks, pay utility bills, buy money orders, travelers checks, gift certificates, postal services, and hunting and fishing licenses. On the main selling level there was a seasonal sales shop, catalog sales department, tailor shop, hobby shop, watch/jewelry repair, and Sears coffee house. The store also included a free kitchen planning service and a decorator studio. Some of the departments available in store include- fur salon, wig salon, home furnishings, floor coverings, domestics, women's wear, accessories, cosmetics, millinery, lingerie and foundation, infants and children's wear, toys, shoes for the family, maternity shop, juvenile furniture department, office equipment, stationary, notions, jewelry, cameras, candy, bath shop, patio shop, shutters, wallpaper department, pet shop, and tobacco shop. The store had a team of 30 technicians would could fix and repair any appliances from tv's to tractors. The store featured 12 separate store entrances on the main level, lots of windows, and beautiful landscaping including colorful shade trees, palms, shrubs, and ground covering.

Newspaper advertisement for the impending opening of the store.

A lot of things of course have changed since the store was opened. The exterior facades have been updates, some of the entrances and display windows have been sealed off, and all of the nice landscaping is pretty well gone. Interior wise, the basement level is opened up to be mostly all sales floor space now. On one end of the store there is a set of stairs leading to the basement level and on the other end of the store is a set of escalators leading down to it. All of the service area have closed up and only the basic Sears merchandise departments are left.

Set of stairs leading down to the basement level of the store.

This older Sears store is full of history and older design features. Enjoy all of the pictures of the store below, they were taken in September 2018. Be sure to leave your comments at the bottom of the page and check back for our next post soon!

Former key making kiosk.

Merchandise pickup area.

Auto Center in the stores parking lot.

Sealed off display windows with sealed off entrance to the right.

More sealed off windows to the left.

Sealed off entrance.

Escalators leading to the basement level.

Shoes no longer self service

Vintage telephones.

Stairs to basement level.

Former electronics department.

Old services area

Closed off services area.

This Sears actually carried draperies.

Closed off stairs.

Closed off area.

Spotlight: Sears (Concept store) - Duluth, GA

2018-09-05T15:38:00.002-04:00

Sears Gwinnett Place Mall Duluth, GA

Today we are taking an in-depth look at the Sears store located in the Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth, GA. $5 million dollars were spent to remodel this Sears into a special one of a kind concept store in late 2006. The grand reopening was held in late January 2007. It was open for its last day of business on September 2, 2018 and is now closed for good, another victim of the Sears Holdings downsizing.

Jan 2007 newspaper advertisement for the grand reopening of the store.

This store was originally built and opened in 1984 with the opening of the Gwinnett Place Mall, which was the first large regional mall in Gwinnett County. Between 1999 and 2001 the fate of the Gwinnett Place Mall looked a little less certain as two new super regional malls opened within a short distance of Gwinnett Place. Sears did not open an department store at those other two malls, thus the Gwinnett Place store was its only large mall location in Gwinnett County. Because of this, it was a very well performing store for the majority of its life at the mall. Since the store was a busy location it was chosen in 2006 to be the test store for a new store concept for Sears. This concept ended up being named the "Duluth" model after the city it's located in.


These barrels have been in storage for years. They were a big part of the concept remodel in 2007.

When Sears embarked on this store remodel into the "Duluth" concept, it had a vision for a store that was modern retro. There were several articles about this store after its remodel including one in the Chicago Tribune. Unfortunately a large amount of the things that made it a cool concept store were quickly abandoned or scaled back within a couple years of the remodel. By the time this store closed in 2018 the only remaining vestiges of the concept remodel included some of the signage and the updated flooring and paint. The little things that made it special were long gone. This concept was the first original format to be created under Eddie Lampert's leadership.

Taken in Jan 2007 after the grand reopening. Expanded electronics department on the left.

Now to get into what changes and updates made this concept store a special one. First of all, you will notice at both entrances is a retro Sears logo that was actually used by the company from 1923 to 1958, so it is a real throwback. Throughout the store this retro logo is used on fixtures, bags, signage, among other things. Oddly though the signs on the exterior of the store were not updated and still featured the 1994-2004 Sears logo. Beyond the logo, a whole host of other changes were in store as this location received a top to bottom remodel into this concept store. The store received all new flooring throughout including all different types of fit and finishes. Carpeting for most of the first floor's Apparel, Shoes, and Accessories departments and several different types and colors of tiling were put in on the second floor's hardline departments. New white wainscot department signs hanging from the ceiling help you find your way around. The entire store was repainted and blueprints for Sears old catalog ready to assemble houses were shown throughout the store on the walls for a retro vibe. The checkouts were all relocated to several central locations on each floor. Every exterior and mall entrance had a bank of checkout registers next to the entrance. There were no registers in departments or around the store other than specialty areas like jewelry and automotive. This store also ditched shopping carts but were subsequently added back in later years.

One of the register banks by a store entrance. There were five of these banks around the store entrances.

One big change that is immediately noticed especially on the second level is how open the store is. During the remodel, nearly all walls that were up separating departments were removed, making the store feel bigger and more open. It was to give the store a more of a retro, showroom feel. You can see all of the departments from across the store. This adjustment helped to add 13,00 square feet more of selling space. Another big change around the store is what was called "lifestyle vignettes." These were displays in every department that featured different items sold throughout the store in one setting. For example, the Chicago Tribune said one was "a mudroom near appliances that is stocked with a washer/dryer, towels, laundry basket, ironing board and detergent, all items shoppers can buy at Sears." These were highlighted further by completely different flooring under the displays and special pendant lighting hanging above. These displays only lasted a short time and were abandoned. You can see where they were located in a lot of the pictures by the different random squares of flooring around the store.

An example of one of the spots where a "lifestyle vignette" was at on the first floor.

Sears also took ideas from their other stores and concepts and put them into this store. One was they made a mini The Great Indoors area in the store called "Simply Indoors." For those of you that don't know The Great Indoors was a large store owned by Sears that sold upscale home products and displayed them in home settings. This "Simply Indoors" section did the same thing as it had home goods, dinnerware, and accessories in a visually appealing display setting. There's a blurry picture below we took in January 2007 of part of this area. Other sections exclusive to this store included a limited selection of cosmetics, a department Sears exited six years before this stores remodel. It also featured an expanded electronics department, with a large section of flat screen TV's, video games, and many other consumer electronics. It even featured a seating area in front of the TV wall for weary shoppers. The store includes the largest Land's End store within a store in the chain. It's located in the middle of the first floor and is highly visible from the mall entrance.

Taken in Jan 2007 after the grand reopening. The Great Indoors type home dept. with Internet kiosks in the background.

The store put a larger focus on customer service and a specialized shopping experience. It has an concierge desk called a solutions center and we'll explain all about that a little further down. There were more supervisors in the store and employees had more extensive product training. Special employees were also added like trained bra fitters in the intimates department. Blazers with the retro Sears logo were available for sales associates to wear. "We've managed to mix that nostalgia with high-tech presentation. That was a challenge to do. It's hard to mix the old and the new," said Michael Hall, the man who Sears hired from Kohl's to manage this test store. In 2007 Sears company spokesman Chris Brathwaite said elements of the "Duluth" concept remodel could find their way into other Sears stores and said "We're using this store as a laboratory rather than a prototype."

Taken in May 2017, the Lands End store within a store department.

Now onto one of the coolest new parts to this concept store, which was sadly very short lived. Located on the second level in the middle of the store close to the escalators was the Sears Solutions Center, Internet Cafe, and General Store. The Solutions center was like a concierge desk where you could do everything from ship packages, to get notified that your car is ready from the auto center downstairs, to have items gift wrapped in paper or put in gift bags that featured images of turn-of-the-20th-Century Sears Roebuck catalogs. The Solutions center also had an Internet Cafe that had coffee and sandwiches available for purchase. It featured nine Internet kiosks you could sit at and had wireless internet access for shoppers with their own laptops. Adjacent to the Solutions Center and Internet Cafe was the General Store. This was a special section to go with the retro-ness of this concept store. It had white pantry shelves, retro Coca Cola shirts, toy tractors, wooden display barrels filled with Craftsman tools, and large glass jars filled with individually wrapped bubble gum, lollipops, and other candy you could buy.

Taken in Jan 2007 after the stores grand reopening. Candy by the piece could be bought from those jars.

Unfortunately like the rest of Sears Holdings, the success of this one of a kind concept store came crashing down and it is now closed forever. Luckily we were able to obtain a couple souvenirs of this unique Sears during its closing sale. We purchased one of the retro logo wooden barrels as featured in the photo above. These were exclusive to this Sears store and the only ones in existence. A picture of one of the barrels from this store was even featured atop an article about Sears in 2007 from the New York Times. We also obtained a case of 100 Sears gift boxes more than likely left over from years ago that have a sticker of the retro Sears logo on the packaging for each box.

Barrel we purchased at the closing sale.

100 gift boxes we purchased at the closing sale. Unfortunately the logo is just a sticker on the plastic.

We visited this store in May 2017 and then again in May 2018, twice in July 2018, three times in August 2018, and one final time on September 1st, 2018 the day before it closed for good. Each time we took a good amount of pictures of the store and a large selection of those pictures are located below. We also took a video with a tour of the store in its final few days of business. You can view it below and also on our YouTube channel Retail World.

Enjoy the rest of the pictures below and remember to post your comments and thoughts at the bottom of the page!

Spotlight: Kmart - Burbank, CA

2018-05-17T12:45:00.001-04:00

The Superstore Pilot store..

1000 N San Fernando Blvd, Burbank, CA 91504

Today we are spotlighting the last store in our California series of posts, Kmart located in Burbank, CA. This location is 72.577 square feet and opened on November 16, 1989. The store was originally built in 1962 as a Zody's, which from research was a small chain of discount department stores out west. Despite Kmart still operating this location it is being marketed for lease by the owners of the shopping center. The store formerly had a Little Caesars Pizza Station in it, although I am unsure went it closed. It does not have a pharmacy, auto center, or garden center. Being only 72,000 Square feet, it is one of the smaller size Kmart locations and could be why this store didn't have any extra services. We have been told by sources that this store was remodeled in late 2017, not too long after we visited it. In 2010 this Kmart was in the news but not for a good reason. A man that was shoplifting from this store was stopped by police in front of the entrance in the parking lot, grabbed one of the officers guns and shot two of the responding officers.

There are three movie studios within a few miles of this Kmart, which makes the store a popular one for filming retail scenes in movies and TV shows. This store was used for the filming of the NBC TV show Superstore's original pilot episode in late 2015 or early 2016. You can read more about it here on Sears Holdings blog. After the pilot was filmed in this Kmart store and the show was officially picked up by NBC for a season, filming was moved to a sound stage studio with a mock discount store built for the filming of all other episodes. The exterior of this store was also used in the filming of the movie Larry Crowe staring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. The name of the store for that movie was Umart.

Photo courtesy of Sears Holdings

As we stated at the beginning of our post this store was not built as a Kmart and you can tell that it wasn't by the layout of things inside the store. The layaway counter is hidden way in the back left corner of the store in the middle of the kids clothing department. The whole length of the back part of the store has an odd drop ceiling. The emergency exit doors around the store you have to go up a small set up steps to reach the doors to get out. The customer service desk was recently updated, possibly for when the Superstore pilot was filmed. The jewelry counter area looks to have been updated also. This store has 10 registers, which is getting more rare to find that many registers in a Kmart store. Most Kmart's in recent years have removed and downsized the amount of registers in each store.

The exterior facade of the store was modified a bit in the past few years. There was a portion of the facade that was open with angled glass over the entryway as shown in the picture below. This part was walled over a few years ago, possibly for when the filming of the Superstore pilot was done.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user monroe3743

Well there you have it, the Kmart store in sunny Burbank, CA. These pictures were taken in the Summer of 2017, but the store is currently still operating. Let us know what you think in the comments and enjoy the rest of the pictures below!

Spotlight: Sears Grand - Rancho Cucamonga, CA

2018-03-31T14:41:00.000-04:00

Grand no more..

Sears Grand 8250 Day Creek Blvd, Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91739

Today we are spotlighting our first post of 2018 and a continuation of our California series of stores. This time we are going on a tour of the Sears Grand store in the Foothills Crossing shopping center located in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Opening on Oct 30, 2004 prior to the Kmart merger, this store is 180,000 square feet and was the first Sears Grand in California and the fourth overall Sears Grand pilot store to open. At the time when it opened it featured all the hallmarks of the Sears Grand concept including books and magazines, baby supplies and toys, plant nursery, card and party supplies, healthy and beauty products, CDs and DVDs, cleaning supplies, and pantry (food) items. The store also featured the following services- auto center, sit down cafe, one hour photo, custom window blinds, key cutting, portrait studio, optical shop, and shopping carts that have a kid-friendly racecar theme with cup holders for mom and dad. The store carried hundreds of familiar brands including Lands' End, Craftsman, Kenmore, Cuisinart, Nike, Whirlpool, NordicTrack, CoverGirl and Huggies. You can ready the official press release for the store opening here.

Directory from when the store opened, half of the departments no longer exist today.

Fast forward to the present day and unfortunately this Sears Grand store and all the Sears Grand stores left no longer feature the things that made it Grand. Most all of the departments and services mentioned above no longer exist at this and all Sears Grand stores. The store also has shaved down it's operating hours since it opened, formerly the hours were 8am-10pm and now the store hours are 10am-9pm. Below you can see some of the former department signs still up but those items are nowhere to be found.

Former pet supplies department

Former pantry food department

Former health and beauty department

Former cleaning supplies department

Former toy department

Doing our visit to this store back in July 2017, we went in the afternoon and the store was almost completely void of customers, which wasn't a good sign for the future of this store. It's a nice location in a large, busy shopping area that is highly visible from Interstate 15. Being only 14 years old, the store is still in good physical condition beside needing a exterior coat of paint. The reviews for this store online unfortunately like most Sears locations aren't very good, mainly because of slow or bad service. Enjoy the rest of the photos from this store below and be sure to leave a comment on what you think!

Auto center, still open for business

Merchandise pickup drive in area

Parking lot almost devoid of customers

Outside seating area for the former cafe/bakery the store had

Former garden center/plant nursery

Because of the large spanish speaking population in the area, there are some signs in spanish

Looking towards the former pantry area

Former pet supplies department

Entrance to merchandise pickup area

All price check station have the original store directory

Former electronics/multimedia department

More of the former electronics department

This used to be the appliances department, it has since moved to the front of the store

Entrance to the auto center below the Diehard sign

All of those grey squares used to have brand name logos of merchandise carried on them

Entrance to the former plant nursery

All of the green squares used to the brand name logos on them of merchandise carried on them

This used to be the home department, it no longer exists and is now appliances

There used to be more registers on the other end but they have since been removed

Former portrait studio and one hour photo area

These registers have been removed and the counters just remain

The customer service desk used to be behind that curtain

Originally the former cafe/bakery and now a former dentist area

Former bedding and bath department which has be relocated

Spotlight: Kmart (2 Level) - Los Angeles, CA

2017-10-28T16:15:00.002-04:00

Store #7225 6310 W 3rd St Los Angeles, CA 90036

Attention Kmart Shoppers! Today we are continuing our series of posts on California locations with a two level Kmart store in the Los Angeles area.

This Kmart store is an 135,000 square foot, two floor store located on the busy West 3rd Street in Los Angeles. It was originally built as a Britt's Department Store in 1963, which was a subsidiary of the JJ Newberry company. After the JJ Newberry company decided to phase out and close their Britt's locations, Kmart stepped in and did an extensive remodel of the store and opened for business on October 5, 1978. One thing to note is that according to news articles when the building was a Britt's, it was a three level store but now in it's current form it's a two level store. When you view the side of the store in Google street view, you can see the windows that are located on third floor level. The third level is completely closed off since it became a Kmart. It is unknown what the third level is used for but it could be a storage and stock area now or just empty. I am unsure how this third level is accessed as there is no escalator that leads up to it.

Ad for the opening of Britt's Department store in 1963.

News article of Kmart coming to the old Britt's location.

We visited this store in July 2017, at the time of our visit the store was conducting a store-wide "Summer Blowout Sale!" This sale is being done at many Kmart locations and looks similar to a pre-going out of business sale that the liquidation companies conduct. This store is a busy location for Sears Holdings and is located in a high traffic shopping center with Whole Foods. As a very rare issue for a Kmart store, parking is hard to come by in this store's parking lot. The parking lot is very small and is shared with many other businesses around Kmart, it's not uncommon to not be able to find an available parking spot at all.

This store has the soft lines departments on the main level including clothing, accessories, jewelry, intimates, and shoes. Also the checkout registers and little Caesars are on the main level. Speaking of the shoe department, this store has a very unique shoe area. The shoe department is a separate area of the store, that has it's own store front with exterior sign and entrance door (although it was locked when we visited.) It can be accessed inside the store by a opening in the wall by the intimates department.

Exterior show department entrance

Interior shoe department entrance

This Kmart has a large Little Caesars Pizza Station Cafe. It has it's own exterior entrance and sign. To access it inside Kmart you go down a short hallway by the checkouts and it opens up into a large seating area with a Little Caesars Pizza Station. It was pretty bust when we visited the store.

Hallway to access the Little Caesars Pizza Station.


Busy location complete with customer staring at me taking this picture.

To access the basement level of the store, there are escalators in the middle of the store including a cart escalator next to the people escalator. There was also a elevator in the corner of the store, but it was out of order when we visited the store. Once on the basement level, the hard lines departments are all there. The layaway counter is also on the basement level. The layaway area looks to have been recently remodeled as it had a newer look. Not sure if this was the case but the current layaway counter could have formerly been the Pharmacy as this store doesn't have one and the current layaway area is right next to the health and beauty aids.

Newer look layaway area, former Pharmacy spot?

This store does not have a garden center, auto center, or as stated above a Pharmacy. It does feature a second store entrance on the street side of the store but it is now closed off and doesn't look to have been used in quite a while. The store has a large amount of registers with several in use when we visited since this is a higher volume store.

Street side entrance that is no longer used.

Plenty of registers for this busy store.

That just about covers this unique and busier Kmart location. If you know of anymore information on this store or its history please leave us a comment and enjoy the rest of the photos below. Until next post..Kmart On!

Spotlight: Sears - Boyle Heights, CA

2017-08-18T14:06:00.004-04:00

2650 E Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90023

Hello Kmart World readers, we are kicking off the first of four upcoming posts about Kmart and Sears stores in the Los Angeles, CA area. Today we are spotlighting this 90 year old historic Sears store in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles.

Construction of the building in 1927. Courtesy of waterandpower.org

This Sears is located on the ground floor of the former Sears catalog mail order product distribution center which was closed down in 1992. The complex was built in 1927 and is over 1.8 million square feet. With the exception of the Sears Retail Store, the rest of the complex has been vacant since Sears moved it's operations out over 25 years ago. The website Urbanize LA toured the inside of the vacant sprawling complex in July 2016, you can view the pictures here. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2006. The building also has its own Wikipedia page, which can be viewed here. We toured this Sears store in July 2017 and all of the pictures posted here were taken during this time.

Shot of the distribution part of the building be redeveloped.

The entire complex with the exception of the Sears retail store is currently in the process of being redeveloped by a businessman who acquired it in 2013. There have been many attempts at redevelopment since the distribution center closed in 1992. The currently in progress redevelopment project plans can be viewed here. The project is moving slowly so it might not completely pan out. The Sears retail store is staying regardless of the development as it has a long-term lease on the building.

Sears is open during the redevelopment of the complex.

Moving on to the Sears store itself, it is a very unique location with a lot of history. The store is on the ground level with an escalator leading to the basement level of the store that features the Sears services. There are four different entrances to the store with only two of them currently being accessible to the public. There are two different parking lots to the store one on each side of the store front and back. The one parking lot features a double level entrance to the store, the bottom entrance is the basement level and is currently accessible to the public to enter. The top entrance is the ground level entrance and is currently closed and inaccessible to enter by. The other parking features the other store entrance that is currently accessible. On one side of that entrance is a Hispanic food stand and on the other side is a fenced in area that was more than likely a former garden center area. The other inaccessible entrance is on the side of the store that faces the street and looks to have been closed off for quite a while.

The bottom entrance is the basement level (publicly accessible), the top entrance is the ground level (currently inaccessible)

Continuing on to the inside of the store, it is a rather large Sears location that has a pretty extensive clothing selection considering a lot of Sears stores are down sizing and moving away from clothing. The store itself seems to be fairly well maintained (by Sears standards) and has updated signage. You can definitely tell it's an old store by a lot of the unique architectural elements (as seen in some of the pictures.) It also has the usual Sears departments including shoes, baby, accessories, home, tools, appliances, mattresses, and it even still has a (downsized) electronics department. One department it didn't have or at least we couldn't find was automotive products.

Downsized electronics department.

All merchandise departments are on the main ground level of the store. Once you go down the escalator to the basement level, it features the Sears services area. A lot of this area is now empty and curtained off though. There's still an optical department, watch and jewelry repair, and a clearance clothing area. Other than those, everything else is empty and closed off. There's a former salon and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service and more than likely one of the other closed areas was a portrait studio.

Basement level with closed services on each side.

There's so many interesting little quirks about this store and its 90 years of existence. Please checkout the rest of the pictures of the store below and feel free to leave you comments on what you think!

This Sears even used to have a gas station! Courtesy of waterandpower.org

Ongoing renovations, not sure what this area was originally.

This entrance is basically used as the main entrance now.

Iconic Sears sign that can be seen for miles in all directions.

Picture hanging in the basement level, notice the Sears building on the right.

Clearance area in the basement level.

Former salon in the basement level.

Sign on the wall in the basement level.

Closed off ground level entrance that is above the basement level entrance.

These were all over the store.

This is the other store entrance that is closed off, it is the street store entrance.

Looking at the distribution part of the building.

Closed small shops attached to the store.

Pick up area on the side of the store.

Spotlight: Kmart - Las Vegas, NV

2017-06-28T13:19:00.001-04:00

3760 E Sunset Rd, Las Vegas, NV 89120

Greetings Kmart World readers! You may look at the title of this post and say 'Isn't there another post with the same name?' The answer is yes, but this is a different Kmart we are spotlighting in Las Vegas. This a an older location in a different part of Las Vegas compared to the other store we featured previously. Unfortunately for this store it was announced on June 7, 2017 it would be closing for good along with a list of 50 other Kmart and Sears stores. It is located on a busy stretch of Sunset Road just east of McCarran International Airport and about 15 minutes from the Las Vegas strip.

This location opened on November 17, 1988 and is 86,479 square feet, which is on the smaller side for a Kmart store. It has the updated logo on the outside of the building and on the road sign. As far as the inside of the store goes, the walls have been updated with red paint, the customer service desk and the jewelry desk have been updated, the department signage was updated in the early 2000's, and they added a large appliances department in the last few years. Other than those changes, this store still looks about like it did when it opened in 1988. The ceiling in this store is extremely low, even for a Kmart store and it adds an overall sense of claustrophobia to this already smaller location.

This location never had an Auto Center and it used to have a small K Cafe snack bar behind the registers but that was removed years ago. The outside garden center is closed off and no longer used, the inside garden area is partially closed off with the remaining space used mainly for boxed patio furniture storage. The pharmacy is still open with pharmacy signage above it original to the store opening in 1988. The electronics department still had a decent selection of TV's and lots of DVDs, but other than that the electronics department was nonexistent. This store features a slot machines area next to the checkouts which seems to be exclusive to the Las Vegas area Kmart stores.

Other than that there isn't a whole lot to say about this store. These pictures were taken on June 8, 2016, almost exactly a year before this store was announced to be closing. One thing you'll notice in the pictures is the lack of customers. Theses pictures were taken at 1pm on a Wednesday and there was almost no customers in the store, which is probably way this store is now closing. Enjoy the rest of the pictures and leave your comments on this store below.

Spotlight: Kmart - Anderson, SC

2017-03-27T19:01:00.001-04:00

3801 Clemson Blvd, Anderson, SC 29625

Today we are looking at the now former Kmart in Anderson, SC. The store's last day of business was March 26, 2017, having been at its current location since the end of 1995. At 118,749 square feet, this store was built with a super center expansion in mind. At the time Kmart was building some of their stores larger and with a certain building style to be easily convertible to the Super Kmart Center concept. This store was one that was built this way. It also has a large empty pad at the front of the parking lot for a K-Express gas station to be built if the store was converted into a Super Center. As you can see though, this store was never converted. It may have been in the plans but was cancelled because of Kmart's bankruptcy troubles a few years after the store opened.

Front of store with Garden Center entrance at far end of picture.

Kmart originally came to Anderson on October 23, 1969 with a 104,000 square foot building just up the road from this location. With its 700 space parking lot, it drew customers from all over the area and was the place to shop in Anderson. It closed in 1995 when its 25 year lease was up and this brand new, larger store opened up at 3801 Clemson Blvd at the end of that year. The Anderson Independent Mail has a nice store on the store's history here.

Looking towards checkouts in December 2016.

This store was one of the stores that Sears Holdings sold off and transferred over to their real estate investment trust Seritage Growth Properties. Most Kmart and Sears stores that were now controlled by Seriage had plans for redevelopment of some type. This store was no exception, as it was announced on November, 19, 2016 for plans to cut this store in half. 59,370 of the stores 118,749 square feet would be leased out to other stores including Burlington Coat Factory. The remaining square footage would continue to operate as a reconfigured, smaller Kmart store. On December 12, 2016 the Anderson city council approved the redevelopment request. On a visit to this store a couple weeks later, we found signs posted that said "Improvement is on the way, pardon our construction as we create a better shopping experience for you" and "Pardon our dust! We are in the process of transitioning our sales floor to a new look." Several of the stores aisles had been turned horizontal facing instead of vertical facing and there were empty spaces at the back of the store.

Taken in December 2016 when the store was to be downsized.

On January 4, 2017, less than a month after the city council approved Sears Holdings request to downsize and reconfigure this Kmart store, it was announced the store would close altogether in March. The pardon our dust and construction signs came down and the store closing signs went up. March 26, 2017 saw the last day this store was in business and so ended the 48 year run Kmart had in the city of Anderson, SC. The Anderson Independent Mail has a nice article about the store leaving the city here. Burlington is still coming to part of the former Kmart building but the rest of the store will stay vacant for the time being.

March 2017, five days before the store closes for good.

This store as mentioned is a larger non-Super Kmart store, it has a very spacious and open layout with higher ceilings than most older Kmart's. The Garden Center inside portion opens directly into the main store with no walls separating it. The Garden Center entrance would have became a secondary store entrance if this store was converted to a Super Kmart Center.

Inside Garden Center area.

At the front of the store when you walk in to the right is an area which most likely was a one hour photo lab or something similar. Next to that space is the Customer Service desk and next to it is the former K Cafe space, which has been closed for a few years. To left of the entrance along the front wall is a space which more than likely was the music, movies, and books shop that Kmart's used to feature at the front of some of their stores. Inside that space in the corner is a room where the former Olan Mills Portrait Studio was located. Also to the left of the entrance is a big open promotional space and then the checkout registers.

Former K Cafe and Customer Service in December 2016.

Along the front wall of the store next to the checkouts is the Electronics department, then the Greeting Cards/Party area, and then Health and Beauty aids along with the Pharmacy. Surprisingly this Kmart does not have a Auto Center in it. We believe during the time this store was built Kmart had suspended adding Auto Centers to their stores.

Electronics department in early 2015 before the counters were removed.

That's about all we can say about this Kmart store. Overall this was a fairly nice and spacious Kmart that was newer than a lot of their aging stores. The pictures featured here were taken on 3 different dates including April 2015, December 2016, and March 2017. Let us know what you think in the comments!

Spotlight: Kmart - Neptune Beach, FL

2017-02-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

500 Atlantic Blvd, Neptune Beach, FL 32266

Today we are taking a look at the Kmart store in Neptune Beach, FL. Unfortunately this store closed in the July 2016 round of closings. This store was 88,572 and opened on 11/17/1977. It underwent an expansion in the mid-90's and converted to a Big Kmart. The right side of the store was expanded out into an area that formerly housed smaller stores in the shopping center.

Arrows are pointing to the Big Kmart 90's expansion.

Before the Big Kmart conversion this store featured a restaurant in the back of the store, it was then converted to more selling space. Surprisingly after the restaurant closed, this Kmart never had a K Cafe up front. This store formerly featured an auto center with six auto bays. The garden center was remodeled for the Big Kmart conversion.

Old restaurant area in the back of the store.

Former auto center bays

This store formally had a one hour photo processing center at the front of the store to the left of the checkouts. That area was converted to a beer and wine section after Kmart phased out their photo labs. Overall this store is a pretty standard smaller format Kmart. Since the 90's Big Kmart remodel this store hasn't received anymore updates, including no new signage that a lot of other Florida stores received.

Former one hour photo lab area at the front of the store.

One interesting architectural feature about this store is the part of the store that was expanded into with the Big Kmart conversation has odd duct work with the ceiling. Look at the two pictures below and you can see it.

The odd ceiling duct work in the expanded part of the store.

More of the odd ceiling duct work.

Finally a cool bonus is we actually attended the grand re-opening of this store after it was expanded and remodeling into a Big Kmart. During the opening festivities they gave away Big Kmart hats to customers entering the store, we saved those hats and have a picture of them for everyone to see.

Big Kmart grand re-opening hats that were given away at this store in the 90's.

There you have it, hope you enjoyed the look into this now closed Kmart store. The rest of the pictures we took of this store are below. The pictures were taken in 2007, 2012, 2013, and 2016.

In 2007 the store was painted all grey.

In 2012 the store was now painted white and tan.

Vintage restroom sign

The old restaurant spot in the back of the store.

You can tell it used to stay Big Kmart, as part of the yellow swoosh is still on the right.

Door to the old auto center is open! Lets look inside!

Former auto center is used for storage now.

Former auto center.

2016 and the store is now closing.

The roll up gates are not for crime but for hurricanes as this store is only about a half a mile from the beach.

Spotlight: Kmart - Cornelia, GA

2017-01-09T09:00:00.000-05:00


365 Habersham Village Circle Cornelia, GA 30531

Today we are touring the Kmart store located in Cornelia, GA, a small town in Northeast Georgia not far from the South Carolina line. Opening in 1985 this Kmart was located in a shopping center with a Revco drug store and a Winn-Dixie grocery store. Today the Revco is a Hibbett sports store and the Winn-Dixie is a Big Lots. This store is on the smaller side at 82,832 square feet. It used to feature a K Cafe and an Olan Mills portrait studio in store, and there is no former auto center space. Unfortunately this Kmart is one of very few locations left in the state of Georgia and the only location in the Northeast Georgia region.

Current shopping center layout and tenant list.

Former Olan Mills portrait studio.

Former K Cafe area.

This Kmart is a prime example of why the company is in a free fall to extinction. The pictures don't do the store justice on just how messy the store was, in addition the shelves in many places were very bare looking. It also features the normal Kmart store staples such as mismatch colored floor tiles, dirty ceiling tiles, and signage in wrong places. Another item of note is the garden center inside part and outside part was completely closed off and inaccessible to the public. Some garden center items had been moved into the store including bird feeders, plant pots, fertilizers, and pesticides.

Empty shelves in the automotive department.

Messy shelves, random items sitting everywhere.

Mismatched floor tiles all over store.

Inside and outside garden center completely closed off.

One cool find at this Kmart was a very vintage Kmart stock cart sitting right outside of the entrance doors to the store. It is definitely original to the store from when it opened in 1985 with the old pre-1990 Kmart logo.

Stock cart original to the store opening in 1985.

There you have it, that is about all that can be said for this 31 year old Kmart store. Judging by the up keep of the store and the lack of customer traffic, this store is likely to not make it past 2017. Enjoy the rest of the pictures and leave your comments on this store below.

Edit: A few days after we wrote this post, this store was announced to be one of 100 Kmart's to close by spring 2017. So our prediction of this store closing came true even sooner than we expected.

Spotlight: Kmart - Las Vegas, NV

2016-11-14T10:00:00.000-05:00

Located at 7501 W. Washington Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89128.

Today we are spotlighting a Kmart in fabulous Las Vegas! It opened on May 7, 2000 and is 101,107 square feet.This store has a unique building style which is more than likely used to blend in with the other Las Vegas architecture. It is not located in a shopping center but in a building by itself. It is located in a busy and dense area with a Lowe's across the street (see picture below.) This Kmart is brightly lit, well maintained, and fairly modern by Kmart's standards. Unfortunately like most Kmart's, the store was pretty dead in the middle of the day with hardly any customers inside shopping.

Located in a busy area of Las Vegas.

This Kmart has been updated with the newest red sign package and the current Kmart logo on the outside of the store. This store has 10 belt driven registers and no wall going into the indoor portion of the garden center. Because of those things it is possible that this store could have been a potential store within a store Super Kmart conversion. Some features of this store include a former Penske Auto Center that is now run by a local automotive shop called AA Auto Care Center. It has a former Olan Mills portrait studio at the front of the store along with a slot machine gambling area next to it. There's used to be a K Cafe at the front of the store. This store features a large Garden Center area but strangely the Garden Center entrance doors were chained shut and the doors to the outdoor garden shop area were chained shut too. The electronics department no longer has a counter area and instead has large appliances in it's place.

Former K Cafe area.

Mattresses added more recently to this store.

Layaway in the back left corner of the store.

Former electronics counter makes way for large appliances.

Old circular electronics sign is the only old school sign left in the store.

Open inside garden shop layout.

Entrance doors to the outside garden area chained shut.

Garden center entrance doors chained shut.

Former Olan Mills on the right, Slot machine gambling area on the left.

Modern jewelry counter.

This store still has 10 registers!

Belt driven registers.

Customer service desk.

These entrance doors were chained shut.

Former Penske Auto Center is now a local run auto center.

There you have it, hope you enjoyed touring this Las Vegas Kmart store! Questions, comments, anything more to add about this store please comment below.

Spotlight: Kmart - Macon, GA

2016-10-10T09:00:00.000-04:00

This Kmart's Macon me crazy!

Kmart #3661 156 Tom Hill Sr Blvd Macon, GA 31210

Located in Macon, Georgia, at 101,279 square feet this Kmart opened on 5/12/1988 and went through a $1.4 million dollar expansion 10 years later in 1998. In 2010 according to building permits the store underwent $156,000 in work, although I haven't been able to figure out what was done exactly. This Kmart is in a prime location as it shares a shopping center with Kroger and is located off of a busy retail corridor with close access to the interstate. This store has a former K cafe, former Olan Mills portrait studio, and it never had a auto service center. It also has belt driven register stations, it still has an electronics counter with a register, it still has a garden shop register with a cashier working it, and it has (oddly) two large appliance departments. Pictures of all that below.

The shopping center tenants along with Kmart.

Map view of the store expansion in 1998.

As stated above in 1998 this store went through a nearly one and a half million dollar expansion project. Most likely the expansion was to bring the store from a regular Kmart to a Big Kmart. The late 90's was when Kmart was rolling out the Big Kmart store concept to the majority of its store base. Kmart expanded many of its smaller stores into the Big Kmart concept that had the newly added "pantry" department. This Kmart's expansion consisted of enclosing in the entire garden shop space and building a new garden shop space onto the front of the store. If you look at the Google map view above you can see the space on the right side of the store where the arrow is pointing is the former garden shop spot, it was completely enclosed to add more store space. If you look at the front of the store where the other arrow is pointing that was the new garden shop that was constructed onto the front of the building. It's unique to see a garden shop on the front of the store like that, very few Kmart's are configured that way.

Google streetview of the Garden Shop from the 1998 expansion.

This location has a former K Cafe just inside the entrance on the left that is currently more shopping space. It's a very oddly configured cafe space, as I'm wondering if it had some type of special cafe layout when it was still open.

Left part of cafe space is walled off, but judging by the tile it was always like that.

Oddly configured cafe space.

Looking in the cafe space.

Standing in the cafe space looking out. The cut in the wall was probably where the fountain drinks were.

This store has a few somewhat unique features that aren't found at most Kmart's. One is it has two large appliance areas. One is in front of the layaway department with most of the appliances still boxed up and it has a appliances department sign hanging from the ceiling. I'm guessing that was the original spot for the appliances. The other spot is next to the electronics and has most of the appliances out of the boxes on display. Mattresses are also on display for sale next to the appliances. My guess is this appliance and mattress area was added recently with the downsize of the electronics department, which is happening at all Kmart's. Surprisingly the electronics department at this store still has a register counter with a still used register. Most all Kmart's have removed those in the downsize of their electronic departments company wide in recent years. Another unique thing is this Kmart has belt driven cash register stations. More than likely these were added during the Big Kmart remodel in 1998. It's odd though that a non-Super Kmart or a non-potential future Super Kmart expansion store would have those type of register stations. Also this Kmart still has 9 registers stations! One more thing I noticed was that the customer service desk still has it's big screen TV that was added in Big Kmart remodels and removed from most stores years ago.

Appliance department #1 in front of layaway.

Appliance department #2 in electronics.

Mattresses next to appliances.

A Kmart that still has an electronics counter!

Belt driven register stations at a regular Big Kmart!

Service desk still has the old school big screen TV.

And there you have it, the Macon, GA Kmart. It's a typical Kmart with a few unique features about it. As always leave your thoughts on the store in the comments below. Also if you know any other history of this store please comment below too. Enjoy the rest of the pictures!

These door were most likely added with the 1998 Big Kmart remodel.

Mismatched floor tiles everywhere just like most Kmart's.

Former Olan Mills portrait studio spot.

Kmart removed a pantry aisle and added promotional bins in it's place.

Going into the Garden shop.

Large Garden shop.

Not only does the Garden shop still have a register but it still has a cashier working it!

9 belt driven registers!

Spotlight: Kmart / Sears Outlet - Henderson, NV

2016-09-12T09:00:00.000-04:00

Store #9819 - 10405 S. Eastern Ave. Henderson, NV 89052

Today we are spotlighting one of the last few Kmart's ever to be built from the ground up. Opening on August 18, 2001 in Henderson, NV at 143,000 square feet this store was formally a Super Kmart Center and is currently now a regular Kmart with a Sears Outlet store inside. This store was opened only about 5 months before the Kmart Corporation filled for bankruptcy and stopped opening new stores altogether, which continues to this day.

Picture of the store when it was still a Super Kmart Center.

In 2010 the Henderson store had its fresh grocery section removed and was officially changed from a Super Kmart to a regular Kmart. The entire right side of the store was completely walled off where the meat, seafood, dairy, deli, and bakery cases and prep/work areas were. It makes you wonder if they left those areas intact and untouched behind the drywall? That side of the store still carries a few dry groceries and dairy items, along with an aisle of beer, liquor, and wine. It does have a larger section of refrigerated cases compared to most regular Kmart's and they are not the cheap, ugly looking ones the majority of Kmart's have. The back half of the former grocery section was turned into a Sears Outlet store within a store.

Overall this store is very nice and well taken care of for a Kmart. For one thing the store is only 15 years old unlike the majority of Kmart locations that are 30-50 years old. This store is also very well maintained, it is clean and merchandised nicely. The interior walls have been repainted in recent years and the clothing department has the newer merchandising fixtures, both things that also help the look of the store.

This store does not have a cafe or restaurant as it was removed and walled off when the fresh groceries were taken out 6+ years ago. There is a slot machines gambling area up front, most likely a Nevada exclusive. There is what looks to be a former bank or maybe video rental spot up front, that even has it's own outside entrance door. Next to the customer service desk is the former Olan Mills portrait studio spot. Strangely the pharmacy is located on the back wall of the store, closest to the former fresh grocery area. Most all Kmart's have their pharmacies somewhere along the front wall of the store, so this is a bit unique. Also to note this store never had a auto service center in it.

Unfortunately now for the bad news. This store is now owned by Seritage Growth Properties, which was spun off from Sears Holdings in 2015 by Eddie Lampert to generate more operating money for the company. Basically he took a couple hundred of the best locations of Kmart and Sears stores and sold them off to this newly created company. The leases are now controlled by Seritage, with the majority of the stores having the option to get subleased to other companies. Which in turn means that 50% and up to 100% of the stores square footage can be taken from the Kmart or Sears store and leased to a different store if it generates more money. Meaning the Kmart or Sears store will have to be either downsized in square footage or pushed out of the space completely.

Map shows the space to be leased out to another store.

Sadly as of August 2016, half of this Kmart store is being marketed to other companies to lease out. Which means that this Kmart could get significantly downsized in the near future. The diagram below shows that Kmart would be downsized to just under 65,000 square feet and keep the left entrance of the store, then just under 58,000 square feet is being offered to lease out and would use the right entrance to the store. Sears Outlet would stay and expand to take up 21,000 square feet of space, which would be the entire former fresh grocery area that is currently completely walled off. It would presumably get a new entrance on the outside of the store, which could end up being the small door on the far end of the store that looks to be the former cafe/restaurant entrance. The store will stay in its current form until a company decides to lease the available space.

This diagram shows the space that's being offered to lease out.

That's about all to report on this store, only time will tell what will end up happening to this newer and fairly nice Kmart location. Enjoy the entire gallery of pictures from this store below and be sure to comment on what you think!

The mystery entrance on the far right of the store, my guess is for the former cafe/restaurant.

A least the road sign has the new logo.

It used to say Apparel and 1 HR Photo above the entrance door when it was a Super Kmart.

Taken from Google street-view since I didn't get a shot of this spot when I was there.

It used to say something along the lines of 'groceries' above the entrance back when it was Super Kmart

Entering through the former grocery side.

Lots of checkout registers still.

Looking to where the Super Kmart grocery area used to be.

What's left of this Kmart's grocery section.

Alcohol aisle..it is close to Vegas after all!

Sears Outlet in the back right of the store where the grocery area used to be.

Entrance into the Sears Outlet area, they had their own registers you paid at.

Pharmacy on the back wall of the store..odd.

Back wall of the store looking towards Sears Outlet behind the shelves.

Electronics was downsized and the counter removed. Appliances and mattresses added.

Part of the electronics department now sells mattresses.

Nice fixtures in the men's clothing department and the fitting rooms.

Looking towards the garden center area.

Inside garden center area, door to go outside was closed off.

Outside garden area is huge but hardly being used.

You could still go outside in the garden area but not much there.

Other store entrance on the general merchandise side.

I'm assuming there used to be some more checkout registers in this spot.

Mannequins in Kmart.

Former bank area

Slot machines area, was possibly part of the former bank area or could have be a video rental.

Former Olan Mills portrait studio spot.

Customer service desk area along the front wall of the store with a ICEE machine!

Spotlight: Kmart - Tuscaloosa, AL

2016-08-15T10:01:00.000-04:00

Kmart Store #3194 635 Skyland Blvd. Tuscaloosa, AL 35405

Today we are spotlighting the Tuscaloosa, Alabama Kmart that was submitted to us by one of our guest contributors. This submission comes from our unpublished archives as these pictures were taken and submitted to us back in 2012.

90's service desk and mismatched floor tiles.

This store was opened on November 25, 1974 and received a minor Big Kmart remodel upgrade in the 90's. Other than that this store is pretty much unchanged since it opened in the 70's. As you can see from the pictures the age and lack of updates/upgrades has really taken its toll on this store. It has mismatched tiles everywhere and a very old garden center sign. One positive of this store and the reason it has survived so long being so run down is its location. The store sits with great road visibility at the intersection of two busy roads. There is a Walmart about 2 miles away but nothing else really close to compete with Kmart.

Abandoned auto center bays.

This store features a large window front that the 70's stores had. A lot of the 70's stores had the majority of its front windows covered up over the years but this store still has them. This store has a long abandoned auto center, a pharmacy, and a hidden away layaway area. Being a 70's store, it originally had a Kmart cafeteria in the back of the store. You can see in the pictures where there's a ceiling arch and different tiles on the floor was where the original cafeteria was located at.

Enjoy the rest of the pictures below and be sure to check out the store in person as it is still open as of August 2016.

To the left was where the original cafeteria was located.

Original cafeteria area flooring.

More cafeteria flooring.

Taken before Kmart phased out video games.

Mismatched tiles everywhere!

Entrance door to former auto center.

Original 70's style door.

Hidden layaway corridor.

Spotlight Revisited: Kmart - Rome, GA

2016-07-09T16:54:00.000-04:00

Closing time...

Located at 102 Hicks Dr, Rome, GA 30161

It's time once again to revisit the Kmart located in Rome, GA, this is our third documented trip to the store on Kmart World. We visited it in 2008 when it was still a Super Kmart Center (the last remaining one in Georgia) and again in 2012 after it had been downsized to a regular Kmart store. Back in May 2016 it was announced by Sears Holdings that it would be one of several Kmart to close around the country despite it being one of Kmart's busier locations. When we were at the store it was about a month and a half away from closing and was well into it's store closing sale. There's not too much to add that we didn't already cover in our previous two posts of this store. Enjoy all of the pictures below, we even have some exclusive shots of the former grocery area that was walled off back in 2009 and hasn't been seen since!

Closing sale was well into effect.

They still had some live plants for sale.

Pharmacy labelscar, it closed right before the closing sale started.

VCR's? This sign dates back to about 20+ years ago.

Old auto center entrance on the right side.

Layaway area.

Can't figure out what this used to be!

Looking towards the old, closed off grocery area.

The hanging plastic curtain covering the old grocery area has been removed!

Newer grocery side displays.

Now to get to some really interesting pictures. They took down a part of the shelving that had been blocking the entire length of the former grocery area. The area was now open as a fixture, furniture and equipment sales area. We went into this area and got lots of great shots that you can see below. We were the only people in this area at the time which made it easier to get good pictures. Enjoy!

The opening in the shelving to get into the former grocery area.

Looking towards the former meat and seafood wall.

Former meat and seafood area.

Former fresh seafood counter.

The area where the faux wood flooring is the start of the former produce.

Looking towards the former dairy and bakery wall.

I believe this was previously the produce prep area.

Looking through an opening in the wall to the backroom area.

Former dairy and lunch meat area.

To the right was the bakery and then the deli past it.

Former bakery and deli

This would have been the grocery aisles.

This would have also been the grocery aisles.

Former K Cafe area.

This was the spot of the deli counter with hot food and lunch meat and cheeses.

Old blue light special signs!

Looking at the former deli.

Old grocery aisle signs.

Looking back towards the pharmacy.

K Express was already shut down for good.

The Floral department was in use up until the closing sale began.

Former Olan mills spot, you can still see the label scar on the wall.

There used to be more registers in this open area.

Game room was closed but still had all the games in it.

Area used to have more registers.

This store originally had 16 registers and now has 9.

The former Pharmacy, it was open up until the closing sale began.

Spotlight: Sears Grand - Las Vegas, NV

2016-06-19T13:49:00.000-04:00

A day late and a Grand short...

Located at 4355 Grand Canyon Dr Las Vegas, NV 89147

Today we visit the Sears Grand in Las Vegas, NV. Opening on July 31, 2004 at 165,000 squre-feet, it was the third store to open as part of the Sears Grand concept. It was also the smallest ground up Sears Grand to open, the first one in West Jordan, Utah is 225,00 square-feet. For those of you who don't know, Sears Grand was developed and started by pre-Kmart merger Sears in 2003 as a ground up off mall hyper-mart type of store to compete with the likes of Walmart and Target. For more information about Sears Grand click here for a story we did on the Sears Grand concept all the way back in 2009.

When opening in addition to regular Sears merchandise, this store offered many items that you couldn't find in a typical Sears store. This store also had a Portrait studio, optical center, hearing aid center, outdoor garden center, full service auto center, key cutting, and large merchandise pickup area. Originally this store's hours were 8am-10pm, today its hours are 11am-9pm. Here's an article straight from Sears website on the opening of this Sears Grand location and an article here all about the store from the Las Vegas Sun.

These directories are posted all over the store at the price scanners.

Unfortunately today this and all remaining Sears Grand locations are a shell of their former selves. If you look at the directory above you can see some of the things a Sears Grand would have that a typical Sears didn't. Well Eddie Lampert decided that the Sears Grand concept wasn't working for him and reverted all Sears Grand locations to regular Sears locations with just a Grand name.

The looking at the directory here are the departments that are no longer offered in the store- cleaning supplies, pet supplies, lawn and garden (just patio furniture and grills still offered), garden center, paint, sporting goods (only bicycles still offered), toys, cds/dvds/gaming, window fashions (limited offering still), home decor, storage and closet, health and beauty, pantry, cards and party, books, portrait studio, and hearing aid center.

After reading that you're probably saying to yourself that's over half the store! And you would be correct, half the store was merchandise a typical Sears didn't carry and now this store doesn't carry. Things have been moved around in the store and now it has a very different layout than the directory which is from when the store opened.

Now the pet supplies/cleaning supplies/seasonal/lawn and garden area of the map just has patio furniture and grills. The lawn and garden area judging by old signs on the wall used to carry things like weed killer spray and fertilizer. The garden center is completely closed off and is used as storage for fixtures and supplies.

Signs on the wall for Ortho and Miracle Gro from the former lawn and garden area.

The sporting goods/toys area is now furniture which is a new department that wasn't offered when the store opened.

The paint area is now the fitness department and the fitness department is now more tools and bicycles.

The electronics department has been downsized by over half of what it used to be. Cds/dvds/gaming have all been phased out with the exception of a couple small displays of dvd's. The furniture department and vacuums take over some of the electronics department on the left side and clothing takes over some of the electronics department on the right side.

All kinds of signs on the wall for things that are no longer carried anymore.

The window fashions/bedding/storage and closet/bath areas of the map have all been taken over my the greatly expanded mattresses department.

The cookware/housewares area on the map is now dining room tables and other small furniture items.

Signs on the wall for the cooking department that was originally here,

The bath and home decor area on the map is now kitchen appliances and what I guess you would consider the cookware.

Signs on the wall to the left for the bath department that was originally here.

The health and beauty/pantry/cards and party areas are now the bedding and the bath departments. According to the article about the store when it opened the pantry department carried items such as milk, cereal, and baby food. It also carried packaged deli meats, hot dogs and a small frozen section with meals and pizzas.

Signs on the wall for the former health and beauty departments.

The books area is now luggage and the portrait studio is now a watch service area.

The clothing and shoes departments are the only part of the store that has remained mostly the same from the directory.

Here's some pictures of what former areas of the store may have looked like. These pictures weren't necessarily taken at the Las Vegas store but they were taken at ground up Sears Grand locations. They were not taken by Kmart World but were found in various old news articles.

Former pantry area

Former pantry area with dairy coolers.

Former cards, party, and books area

Former cd and dvd section of the electronics department.

Notice the Cafe/Bakery on the left side of the picture.

There you have it the not so Grand Sears Grand in Las Vegas, NV! Here's the rest of the pictures that were taken on June 9, 2016-

Spotlight: Super Kmart Center - Moon Township, PA

2013-01-20T22:00:00.000-05:00

Store 4935 2000 Marketplace Blvd. Moon Township, PA.

Today we feature a Super Kmart Center that hasn't been downsized to a regular Kmart or closed down all together. It is located in Moon Township, Pennsylvania and was one of the first developments in the area between the city of Pittsburgh and the airport. It opened in November of 1994 and is 172,253 sq feet according to SHCrealty.com. It was strategically built to escape the high taxes of nearby areas. The area developed rapidly in the late 90's and into the early 2000's. Few other businesses decided to locate on Marketplace Blvd though.

Thank you for shopping Super Kmart Center instead of Walmart!

During it's first 8 years of operation this store did $250,000-$300,000 a day in sales. When Kmart went into bankruptcy in 2002, it was slated for closure along with numerous other Super Kmart Centers around the country. Luckily the store pulled through and stayed open, although it discontinued being open 24 hours for over a years time. Unfortunately sales declined year after year with only slight improvements during 2008-2010. Since 2010 sales have continued to decline again.

The typical exterior design of a built from the ground up Super K.

According to a article in the Beaver County Times on November 10, 1994, this store opened with 28 checkout registers and 16 grocery aisles. It featured a full service auto center, hair salon, pharmacy, outdoor garden shop, one hour photo lab, florist, portrait studio, gourmet coffee and bakery kiosks, and a full service restaurant. The grocery side of the store featured a butcher shop, bakery, deli, prepared food section, fresh produce, and fresh seafood.

Dairy department.

Unfortunately the features of this store have dwindled over time and the former auto center, restaurant, and arcade spaces are being rented out for other businesses to come in and operate. The auto center was closed in 2002, full service meat and seafood in 2003, the restaurant in 2004, Borics hair salon in 2011, bakery and deli operations were greatly reduced in 2012, the floral department was closed quite a while back, and the one hour photo lab is long gone also. In early 2012, this Super Kmart Center along with the 21 others remaining around the country had their hours reduced from being open 24 hours to 6am to 12am everyday. One thing promising for this store is that at the end of December 2012, it starting accepting WIC vouchers, the first Kmart store in the country to do so.

Service Desk with the Super Stars of Super K.

Team shop and former florist area.

The former restaurant seating area.

Another shot of the former restaurant seating area.

Newest Super Kmart Center logo, now pronounced Kmart Supercenter

And there you go another barely surviving Super Kmart Center, one of just a few remaining around the country. Should Kmart just give up completely on their remaining Supercenters or should they continue to let them hang on? Let us know in the comments below.

Spotlight: Kmart - Fort Pierce, FL

2012-08-27T10:14:00.000-04:00

2111 S Federal Hwy Fort Pierce, FL 34950

Today we continue our streak of featuring Florida Kmart's submitted by our anonymous source. This one being located in Fort Pierce, FL. The difference with this location is it's an older and outdated store. It's 88,437 sq ft and opened on May 13, 1976, making it one of Kmart's older stores. This store is a former Grants department store location. This is one of the Kmart's that give the chain a bad name for being old, smelly, and cramped. At one time the store did have a large auto center, but it's now part of the toys department and backroom. There is no longer a pharmacy at this location, as it was removed about 10 years ago due to low sales volume. Mainly from a pharmacy being at the Winn-Dixie and CVS next door and also in the Publix close by. The store also had a Little Caesar's for a while. It was a franchisee leasing space within the store, not a Kmart run Little Caesars. Unfortunately Sears Holdings raised the rent and the franchisee left. The funny thing is he relocated in the shopping center a couple doors down from Kmart. It was cheaper to rent a space there in the center than being inside of Kmart. When it was inside Kmart, it had its own entrance from the outside of the store. That entrance is now boarded up and the area is used for layaway storage.

Former auto center, now a toys department.

Former Little Caesar's entrance.

This store is in a fairly busy shopping center with a Winn-Dixie grocery store on the other end. The store is located on a major highway with a large amount of low income households nearby, which fits the demographic for this store. There's no competition around, as in Walmarts or Targets. The closest Walmart is to the west. It's in a very busy section of town by Interstate 95, making traffic not worth going to it. Sales were really good at this store up until last year, having dropped about a million dollars less than the previous years. If sales don't increase this year, the store will more than likely be slated for closure. During Kmart's heyday, this was a corporate meeting store and district manager office for the central east coast of Florida, due to its location at the time. The store features a large conference room and store managers office.

Looking towards one end of the store.

You may have noticed in the first picture that the Big and yellow slash for the Big Kmart logo have been removed, with just the Kmart part of the logo remaining on the front of the building. There's a interesting story to that. Like a lot of Kmart locations, the paint was badly faded on the letters. At the time, the store manager sent an associate on the roof with a bucket of blue, red, and yellow paint to repaint it. After he repainted the logo, the results were awful. Just an FYI, you can't paint a hard plastic light up sign with just an off the shelf paint. The result was terrible chipping with chunks of paint falling off. The company decided to remove the Big and yellow swoosh part of the logo. They kept the Kmart part and resurfaced it. Because of removing only part of the logo, the Kmart part is not centered on the building and holes are still visible where the rest of the logo was. Now that's Kmart genius at its finest!

Looking towards the jewelry counter.

This store looks very rough on the inside and is a big departure from some of the nicer, remodeled Kmart we have featured on here recently. There's mismatched floor tile colors all over, mismatched looking ceiling tiles, old store areas boarded up, and just a general tired, depressing look. And there you have it, the Fort Pierce, FL Kmart. Enjoy the rest of the picture below and leave your comments on this store!

A very unappealing looking store.

Green tile? Was this left from when it was a Grant's?

Old electronics department sign, not many store still have this up/

Terribly mismatched floor tiles up an aisle.

Old wood boards on the wall.

90's garden center sign, from the Big Kmart era.

Former auto center, now toys department.

The ceiling of the old auto center.

Disgusting looking air vent.

Typical summer patio area.

The infamous coolers.

This store actually has a decent selection of dairy items.

Mismatched ceiling tiles.

What?! No long rows of florescent lights at this store?

You can definitely tell this wasn't a ground up Kmart because of the lights.

Green lines to go with the green tile.

Lock up case for air rifles.

The path to layaway and the restrooms.

Grey lines on top of green lines.

Possibly the former Little Caesars area.

Another shot of it from the side.

Baby department looking towards the clothing area.

Back wall of the baby area.

Mismatched Women/Men's fitting room signs.

Girls clothing looking towards front entrance.

Service desk with big focus on Western Union services.

Exit doors.

Left side of building.

Right side of building with old Little Caesars entrance.

Final shot of this Kmart store.

Spotlight: Kmart - West Palm Beach, FL

2012-07-18T12:00:00.000-04:00

4340 Okeechobee Boulevard

West Palm Beach, FL 33409

Following in the vein of our last post, today we have another feature on a remodeled Kmart in Florida. This one again was submitted by our anonymous source and is located in West Palm Beach, FL. It was remodeled a few years ago and now has the orange and brown color scheme. We have mentioned the orange and brown remodel concept before on the site but have never featured pictures of one until today. This color scheme was in use between the multicolored scheme from the Kmart in our last post and the currently used red and white scheme. This store is 123,007 sq ft according to Sears Holdings Reality website, which puts it on the very high end for the size of a regular Kmart location. It has a Sears Auto Center, which was added in the old Penske automotive bays when the store was remodeled. It also has a large appliances area in the store. This store was included in the PDF that Kmart had on their website a couple years ago listing newly remodeled locations around the country.

Sears Auto Center inside Kmart.

Large Appliance department.

This Kmart is located in a large shopping center at the corner of a busy intersection of two major roads. Unfortunately though this store doesn't get very much business and has a high rent to pay, thus not generating much if any profit for the company. Not to mention a Super Target and Super Walmart are just down the road from this store, stealing most of the business away. It won't be surprising if this location ends up on one of the store closing lists soon.

Panty department with individual aisle signs.

There you have it a good looking, remodeled Kmart in a busy and nice area that gets hardly any business. What do you think about this store and the fate it might face in the near future? Enjoy the rest of the pictures and leave your comments below.

Spotlight: Kmart - Lake Park, FL

2012-06-23T16:27:00.000-04:00

1220 Northlake Blvd Lake Park, FL 33403

Today we are spotlighting a Kmart that was visited by one of our anonymous guest contributors. This Kmart located in Lake Park, FL and opened on August 15, 1974. The store is doing fairly well and has even received a decent looking remodel in the past couple of years. Interestingly there is a Target complete with the new P-Fresh grocery section right next door to this Kmart.

Bright colored walls help make the store look bigger.

This Kmart was remodeled with multicolored walls and the black (or brown) and orange concept departmental signs. They added a Sears Auto Center and a drink station at the front of the store with ICEE's. The store also has an Olan Mills portrait studio and a Pharmacy, but no K Cafe. Of course with most Kmart remodels obvious details have been overlooked like the old, nasty ceiling tiles, outdated video game cases, and the ancient milk coolers. Overall it was a nice looking remodel, but not as nice as the ones they have done most recently. If Sears Holdings would spend just a little more on each store's remodel it would make a big difference, but alas that's how Eddie Lampert manages the company.

Look at that nasty ceiling, why not fix that?

In the pantry department, it's set up a bit differently than most Kmart's. The aisles are broken in half so that it makes two short aisles as apposed to one long run. In turn that makes it a little more shopper friendly.

Panty aisle signs.

Now going back to the Target next door. Upon checking it out, it was a cluttered and cramped but clean store. The parking lot is a bit cumbersome to navigate and is not very easy to access from the highway. Possibly because of that the store was very empty upon visiting and is probably a good reason the Kmart is still making it. Kmart had a good amount of foot traffic and has multiple entrances to the complex. The Target is by itself and the Kmart is in with a busy shopping center.

Map showing how close Kmart is to Target

And so that covers the Lake Park Kmart. What do you think of the remodel of this store? Do you think it'll continue to survive next to Target? Leave you comments below and enjoy the rest of the pictures.

Special Report: The closing of a Kmart - Buford, GA

2012-05-04T00:54:00.000-04:00

Big Kmart 1605 Buford Hwy in Buford, GA.

As it was announced on December 27th, 2011, Sears Holdings decided to shutter numerous Kmart locations for 2012. One such location is the Buford, GA Kmart that we briefly featured on here back in 2009. Most of the locations slated for closure have either just closed or are finishing up their GOB sales. In cooperation with our inside sources, we were able to get exclusive access to pictures and information on the process of closing a Kmart store. Closing a Kmart is never an easy thing to do especially on the associates. This particular location had associates who have worked at the store since it's opening. The decision to close this store was not because sales were bad, but because the lease was up and the rent was being increased. In this case Sears Holding's decided it was better to close this location and move on.

During our visit in early January.

This store was one of many that was announced on December 29th to be shuttered in 2012. The preparations began almost immediately. By the first week of January, the Western Union and Lottery services are removed from customer service, Olan Mills is closed, Layaway's are no longer being accepted, and vendor items (i.e. Coca-Cola, Frito Lay products) have been removed from the store. During the month of January the store is responsible for price stickering every item in the store for the impending start of the closing sale. This is a very time consuming but necessary task as things would be getting condensed and moved around once the closing sale started.

Pre-GOB sale in effect.

On January 29th, the 'pre-going out of business sale' starts and the liquidator is now in charge of the store. Total inventory blowout signs are put up around the store, all items are moved back to their regular retail prices and all Kmart promotions end. Everything is put on sale from 10-30% off and the pre-GOB sale lasts about three weeks. The liquidator instructs the store to hire a large amount of temporary help to assist with the extra work involved in a closing sale.

GOB sale had started.

On February 21st, the store goes into full liquidation mode. The total inventory blowout signs come down and the going out of business, everything must go, and nothing held back signs go up. All sales final signs are also posted and enforced. The liquidator starts shifting around the departments and closing off sections of the store that are empty. All items left in the backroom are moved to the sales floor. The tentative closing date was set for May 6th.

A few weeks into the GOB sale.

For the next few weeks, the percentage off for items slowly moves up at the liquidators discretion. Fixtures, furniture, and equipment sales start and the back part of the store is now roped off for the fixture sales. As more merchandise sells, all items are moved towards the center of the store and the empty parts are roped off with caution tape. Shelving units are taken down as they are emptied and placed on pallets to be sold. The liquidator is very adamant on keeping the store neat and presentable even though it's going through a GOB sale. By the middle of March the closing date for the store is moved up to April 22nd because of quicker sell-through than expected.

After Electronics was moved to Jewelry.

By the end of March the store is getting more and more empty, the electronics department products are moved to the Jewelry department area. The whole back and right side of the store is now closed off. Furniture from the employees areas are moved out to the sales floor to be sold off.

Final 10 days of business.

On April 12th, signs are put up advertising that it's the last 10 days of business. By this time only the front forth of the store has merchandise left in it. Percentages are moved up further and people start to buy more and more freely. Employees continue to tear down the shelving and stack it on pallets for the customers that buy it. Several groups of fixture buyers are busy removing their purchases.

Last day of business for Kmart.

On April 22nd, the last day of business has arrived and what's left is priced to move. Starting out in the morning items are 50%-80% off. As the day goes on the liquidator moves the percentage up more and more, until finally right before the store closes for good any remaining product is 99% off.

Two days after closing, the sign comes down.

Starting April 23rd, all merchandise is now gone and the store is closed to the public. For the next week the store would be open from 8a-5p for final fixture sales. Employees are tasked with taking down and palletizing all remaining fixtures. Large dumpsters are brought in to throw away fixtures that won't be sold or recycled for scrap metal. Electricians from Sears Holdings Corp. disconnect all of the information systems and electronics. Registers and other electronic hardware are boxed up and sent off to Sears Holdings in Illinois. The jewelry, electronics, and customer service counters are taken apart and sold off. Two of the register counters are transferred to another nearby Kmart and the rest are broken down and thrown in the dumpster. All metal fixtures that weren't sold are picked up and sold off to a scraper. Shopping carts are divided up and sent off to 4 other local Kmart's. Store supplies are wrapped up in pallets and sent off to a local store for use. Store employee files and other sensitive information are either sent off to another Kmart store for storage or shredded on site. The store Loss Prevention employee takes down and removes all of the stores security camera's. Sign crews removed the Big Kmart sign from the building and black out the Kmart name on the road signs.

A week after closing the store is empty.

By April 28th, everything had to be gone from the sales floor, so the floor could be scrubbed and cleaned. On April 30th the windows are papered over and all store fixtures are now removed from the store. Final preparations are being done for vacating the building. On May 3rd, everything is finished and the store is locked up for the last time. So ends the story of this Kmart location.

From our visit during the first week of January, right after closure announcement-


Olan Mills closed down right after the GOB announcement.

Layaway's were no longer accepted right after the closing announcement.

After the start of the pre-GOB sales and GOB sale-

Pharmacy closed right after the pre-GOB sale started.

In the main backroom.

Upstairs backroom.

District office was located in the store.


District office room.

Map of Kmart locations in the District office room.

In a closet by where the K Cafe used to be. Walls used to be painted red.

S. Kresge portrait for sale.

Binders being thrown away.

Under the shelves you can see the old blue aisle striping.

Found under an aisle, definitely been there for many, many years.

Looking in the old Pharmacy.

After store is closed for good-

Very old sign that was under an aisle.

Pack of gum that was under an aisle, very old also.

Road sign was painted over.

Old Olan Mills studio.

Inside the Olan Mills.

Another shot inside Olan Mills.

Inside the dressing rooms, look at that old contraption on the ceiling.

Store blueprints for another Kmart that were found.

I believe this was the original layout for the store.

Kmart no more.

Inside the old office.

Well there you have it, a look at a closing Kmart before, during, and after. As always leave your thoughts below.

Spotlight Part 2 of 2: Sears to Kmart - Marietta, GA

2012-03-23T12:30:00.000-04:00

Kmart is back!

After our January visit documenting the conversion process of this store going from a Sears to a Kmart and being featured in part one of our Spotlight here, we will now look at the finished product. Fast forward to March and the store is now a Kmart again. It has undergone quite a transformation and the end result is very impressive.

Kmart Now Open? When's the last time you saw a sign say that?

Pulling into the parking lot, first thing you'll notice is the big new Kmart logo on the front of the building. There are new signs on the cart corrals and the shopping center road signs. The stripes on the doors went from blue when it was Sears to the Kmart red. Just inside the doors is a small lobby with an area for the shopping carts on the right.

The new Kmart lobby.

As I stepped foot into the actual store, I let out an audible "Wow!" I was thinking "Did I really just step foot into a Kmart store?" As soon as you walk in, you are greeted with a big open space at the front of the store. The clothing department is directly in front of you and on the entire right side of the store. The store has a big, open 'racetrack' format around it. The racetrack is a lot more open and defined than most all other Kmart's. Just to the right of the entrance was the greeting cards. The jewelry department was in the middle of the clothing side of store. The back wall behind the clothing was the shoes department. Several of the departments in the store including the clothing department had carpeting, which is almost non-existent in Kmart stores.

Looking at the Women's clothing dept.

Jewelry department, right in the middle of the clothing store side.

After passing the shoes along the back wall of the store was the appliances and electronics department. The electronics department honestly looked like it was one from a Sears store. There was even new display cases for the video games. Just past the electronics was the mattress department. Yes, this Kmart sells mattresses and has them on display.

Are we in Sears or Kmart's electronics? Yes we're really in Kmart's.

Kmart's mattress department, a first for me.

Just past mattresses was the layaway area and then the furniture department. Following that was housewares and then sporting goods. Along the left side wall of the store was hardware. automotive, toys, books, and then home office.

Sporting goods and luggage on the right.

Tools and automotive.

Books, magazines, and home office departments.

At the front left corner of the store you have the seasonal area, followed by the entrance to the inside garden center area. The inside garden shop featured lawn mowers and the typical garden shop fare, just merchandised a lot more nicely. The outside garden shop area was open and featured several gardening plants and flowers for sale.

Seasonal area, which is set up for the summer time.

Inside garden shop area, merchandised very nicely.

Outside garden center with plenty of spring plants.

Once past the garden shop entrance is the health and beauty department including the cosmetics. Very strangely the Pharmacy was no longer open. A sign was posted where the Pharmacy window used to be stating that the records had been moved to CVS. I didn't understand that at all because the Pharmacy was left open when the store was originally converted from Kmart to Sears. It was still open as of January when we visited the store as it was being converted from Sears to Kmart. I don't understand why they would close it now that the store is back to a Kmart, but that's Sears Holdings Corp for you.

Health and Beauty department.

Shuttered Pharmacy, don't understand why it was closed down.

As stated earlier when you walk into the store the Women's clothing is in front of you in the middle portion of the store. To the left of that is the domestics department including the sub-departments of curtains, home decor, bedding, bath, and small appliances.

Looking towards all the domestics departments.

Looking towards the other domestics departments.

Following the domestic department was the household cleaning products and the pet supplies. And finally following that was the Pantry department with all the food and drink products. It still featured the same sad looking milk coolers that all Kmart stores have for their refrigerated items.

Cleaning and home products, with pet supplies just past it.

Pantry food aisles.

Pantry aisles with the infamous milk coolers.

That pretty well covers the departments. The customer service desk and checkout registers were at the front of the store just to the left of the entrance. The register set-up is very unconventional. It was left the same from when it was Sears, as the register counters are blue for that reason. There are seven registers, but they are in an L shape. There is one central line for all the resisters. The customer service desk is directly to the left of the registers along the wall.

Just inside the entrance looking left towards customer service.

The unconventional register set-up.

Unlike most of the more recent Kmart remodels, this store doesn't feature the orange and brown color scheme but instead uses the traditional Kmart red for all the signage and walls. The red looks a lot better and goes with the Kmart stores more I think. This store also doesn't have an Internet Cafe that a lot of the remodeled Kmart's from the last few years have gotten. There is no restaurant or K Cafe type place at this store either. It has the same Kmart low ceilings and rows of florescent lights, but the store doesn't feel cramped or closed in. That's mainly because the aisle's aren't as high, the racetrack around the store is a lot wider and overall it's a lot more open feeling. It looks less like a Kmart inside and more like a small Target store. Everything is different about this store than most every other Kmart, so it's hard to even compare it to another Kmart.

Remodeled Kmart with an 1980's facade.

If Sears Holdings invested the money to remodel most of their Kmart stores to look like this one, it would be a very good start for them to getting business back. Next would be to lower their everyday prices, widen their selection of food products, and add a small restaurant up front. But at least this store is a start and a very good one at that. What do you think of the way this store looks? Could making all Kmart's look like this one help save the company? Leave your thoughts below and enjoy the rest of the pictures.

Just inside the front door.

Just inside the front door looking to the left.

Shoes on the right, accessories on the left.

Women's clothes with the wide racetrack running through it.

Appliance department, small one at that.

New video game cases in a Kmart!

Back wall of electronics.

Another shot of electronics.

Wide racetrack cutting between domestics and accessories.

Furniture department.

Hardware on the right, sporting goods on the left.

Toys on the right, pantry on the left, Easter in the middle.

Looking towards the front of the store.

Garden shop entrance.

Inside garden shop.

Another shot of the inside garden shop.

Around the side of the outside garden shop.

Pantry aisles.

Pantry, Pets, and Home cleaning aisles.

Cosmetics right next to health and beauty.

Front registers and the central checkout line.

Entrance/Exit doors. Not your typical Kmart doors.

Looking towards the inside garden shop.

Kmart road sign.

Spotlight Part 1 of 2: Sears to Kmart - Marietta, GA

2012-03-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

Marietta, GA Sears

It's not everyday that you see a store go from one name to another name and then back to the original name all in the span of less than five years. But today you will see it in this special edition of our Spotlight feature post. In part one we will be exploring the process of transforming a Sears into a Kmart, but first a little back story.

Bing Maps view of when it was originally a Kmart.

This store located at 4269 Roswell Rd in Marietta, GA and is 106,702 sq ft according to Sears Holdings reality website. It opened up in 1980 as a Kmart, and was re-branded in the 90's as a Big Kmart. In 2007, the Kmart liquidated and opened up as a Sears store in November 2007. In November 2011, the Sears was in the process of liquidating and it opened back up as a Kmart in March 2012. Sound confusing right? I can only imagine what the local customers are thinking.

Inventory Clearance signs line the outside of the store.

Before being converted into a Sears, it was just a typical 80's/90's Big Kmart with no real standout features. In a long article about Sears Holdings from Entrepreneur.com, the author talks about the Sears conversion being another of Eddie Lampert tests. At the time it featured the "largest Lands' End store-within-a-store in the country," taking up almost a third of the store's floorspace. We featured this store on our site in July 2009. We documented what the store was like after it was remodeled into Sears. One thing to know is this wasn't a Sears Essentials or a Sears Grand store. It received a lot more extensive remodel and sold Sears only products, nothing was held over from the Kmart store days. This store was also converted after most all of the Essentials/Grand conversions happened.

Kmart coming soon! Again!

Unfortunately the test of converting this Kmart store into a unique Sears store failed. The store lost most of the business it had from when it was a Kmart. Only 4 years after the conversion, Sears Holdings announced that it would be one of several Sears/Sears Essentials/Sears Grand stores around the country being converted back into Kmart stores in 2012. During the process of being converted, all Sears merchandise had to go. When I visited the store at the beginning of January 2012, most everything was 25-50% off. The Health and Beauty products and a few others items were the only things not discounted, as it was being retained for when Kmart reopened. Work had already begun on the conversion with over half of the store being closed off with blue curtains. Contractors and Kmart employees were both actively working on getting the store prepped and ready for the March grand re-opening. Part 2 of this Spotlight will focus on the new 2012 Kmart after the conversion.

Sears? Kmart? Both?

Walk up Pharmacy window, added when the Sears opened.

Everything must go! Got to make room for Kmart!

Half of the store was curtained off already.

Behind the curtained off area.

Looking towards the front checkouts.

Greeting cards and looking towards the Pharmacy area.

Everything is marked down to go!

Empty shelves.

Exercise equipment priced to move.

Lawn and Garden department.

Inside the garden shop, now full of new Kmart fixtures.

Hardware department

Outside garden shop area, full of more fixtures.

Behind another curtained off area.

Another shot of the curtained of area.

Appliances priced to sell.

What was left was condensed to a small area.

Whole back wall of store was curtained off.

Where one of Sears internet kiosks once sat.

Looking towards the back wall.

Sears shoe department.. what's left of it.

More of the shoe department.

Contractors were working on the deconstruction while the store was open.

Spotlight: Sears Outlet / Former Kmart - Marietta, GA

2012-03-10T01:49:00.003-05:00

Sears Outlet - Marietta, GA

Today Spotlight feature focuses on a very old former Kmart building that has been re-purposed into a Sears Outlet, a local thrift store, and a local automotive shop. This store is located at 1140 Roswell Rd in Marietta, GA.

First a little history, originally this location was a Kmart and re-branded as a Big Kmart in the 90's. It's been in operation in the same location since 1964. The first Kmart opened in the US in 1962, so this store was definitely one of the first few ever opened. It's closure was announced in November 2008 for being an underperforming store. After the liquidation sale concluded, it closed for good in January 2009. This store had an auto center and at one time had some type of eatery inside of it.

View from when it was still a Kmart, courtesy of Bing Maps.

I visited this store in January 2012 after it was reopened as a Sears Outlet. The Sears Outlet takes up a little over half of the old Kmart space and uses the main entrance and exit Kmart had. A wall was built directly to the right of the entrance and divides the store. The other half of the old Kmart space, which is the right half of the store, is occupied now by a local thrift store. A new set of doors were installed on the front wall of the store to enter the thrift store. Finally, the former Auto Center is now being used by a local auto shop, Masters Automotive.

Old Kmart Auto Center, now a local auto shop.

The outside of the store received absolutely no changes from when it was Kmart, not even a paint job. The old Big Kmart, Pharmacy, and Garden Shop logo labelscars are very obvious and fully visible. The old outside garden center area is still there also. The only true change, as mentioned earlier is the addition of a set of entrance/exit doors for the thrift store.

Looking the the Sears Outlet and the Thrift store.

There was also no renovations done on the interior of the store from when it was Kmart. Sears Outlet just brought in the merchandise and shelves/racks and opened up. You can tell by the inside of the store that this was a very old Kmart location, older than even most other Kmart's as evident by its 1964 opening. Upon entering the lobby of the store on the right wall there is an extremely ancient heater type machine that looks to be from a few decades ago. Inside the store, the ceiling height is considerably higher. With the exception of Super Kmart Center locations, the vast majority of Kmart's have the low ceilings. This makes most Kmart's feel a lot smaller than they really are because of their low ceiling heights. Another thing unusual is there are skylights in the ceiling, which is definitely a first for me to see in a Kmart building. It's especially unique because the ceiling is not a warehouse type ceiling but a drop tile ceiling. Finally, an interesting thing I noticed is that Sears Outlet was using some of the chairs from the old Kmart eatery.

High ceiling, looking along back wall of store.

One of several sky lights in the ceiling, a Kmart rarity.

There you have it, a nearly 50 year old Kmart building turned into a Sears Outlet. As always leave you thoughts about the store below in the comments and enjoy the pictures!

The old outside garden center.

The thrift store side of the building.

Big Kmart labelscar fully visible behind the Sears Outlet sign.

Sears Outlet side of the building. Old Pharmacy labelscar visible.

Wall on right was added to divide the Sears Outlet from the thrift store.

Looking towards the left side of the store.

Looking towards the back of the store.

Old Kmart eatery chairs survived the closing and got a second life.

Looking towards the front of the store.

Sears Outlet exit, look at those small, ancient doors.

As described earlier, the very old heater on the lobby wall.

Former Kmart road sign.

Google street view from when it was still Kmart.