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Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 28 Sep 2012 12:40
by pseudo3d
Kmart closed some 70 (I think--I don't have a lot of time when writing this) stores in 2000. Which ones? I know there was Brickyard Mall, I think the original American Fare Kmart, and a few others. Anyone have a list?

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 29 Sep 2012 09:11
by pseudo3d
The number was 72. Here's what I found out so far (to be updated)

Brickyard Mall, Chicago, Illinois (built in the late 1970s, demolished)
4930 State Highway 30, Amsterdam, New York (closed in 2000, according to D&D Retail)
2761 Jensen Avenue, Sanger, California (closed in 2000, according to D&D Retail)

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 29 Sep 2012 10:03
by nysw3636
pseudo3d wrote:Kmart closed some 70 (I think--I don't have a lot of time when writing this) stores in 2000. Which ones? I know there was Brickyard Mall, I think the original American Fare Kmart, and a few others. Anyone have a list?
Here are 66 of them. Also, not on this list is 5 in the Sacramento, CA area...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/07/ ... 8377.shtml

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 29 Sep 2012 15:22
by pseudo3d
Ah. There we go. If only the 1994 closure list was so easy to find...

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 29 Sep 2012 19:40
by TW-Upstate NY
[quote="pseudo3d"]

4930 State Highway 30, Amsterdam, New York (closed in 2000, according to D&D Retail)

This was a Super K Mart which replaced a smaller store (a former Grants) just up the road. It opened in the fall of 1994 and never really caught on since Wal-Mart opened right across the road about the same time. The property sat vacant several years after the closure and was finally demolished sometime in 2007 to make way for Target which opened in the fall of 2008. Today, the site is home to not only Target but Kohl's and a moderate sized strip mall. The store this store replaced is now home to a Big Lots and a movie theater. I still say if they had stayed in that old store and just expanded it they'd be open to this day.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 30 Sep 2012 16:49
by nysw3636
pseudo3d wrote:Ah. There we go. If only the 1994 closure list was so easy to find...
There were 110 store closures announced in September 1994, with closings to be done by February 1995. Texas and Indiana had the most with 12 each.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 11:46
by pseudo3d
My local Kmart (College Station) was closed in 1994-1995. Although the facade was remodeled in 2006, the ridged concrete outside and distinctive parking lot lights are still visible. Kmarts survived in Texas, though the 2002/2003 closures pretty much wiped them out. I blame the Venture takeovers in Texas for saturating the market with poor locations that lacked things like garden centers.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 01 Oct 2012 12:40
by nysw3636
Here are the 110 stores that were announced in September 1994 to be closed by February 1995...

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/KMART+TAK ... a015802942

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 02 Oct 2012 08:58
by pseudo3d
Wow! Thanks a bunch! I wonder why my local store closed down: apparently, because the fact that they absorbed the Kmart Foods space, they were one of the largest non-Super Kmarts, but they lacked automatic doors. If only had Kmart really was more proactive in this type of thing: if they opened a Super Kmart on the highway (literally, just maybe two blocks away), they could've eaten Wal-Mart's lunch a long time ago.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 02 Oct 2012 13:34
by Super S
On that list is a store in McMinnville, Oregon, as well as Salem, Oregon. I remember visiting the McMinnville location in the late 80s. It seemed like it was a newer building. Even though it had the orange stripe interior, it had a newer style of lettering on the walls, which I remember first seeing at some time in the early 80s. That location is now a Safeway.

The North Salem location is clearly recognizable as a former Kmart. I drove by there not long ago and it is now Harbor Freight Tools (although I think they only take part of the space...I did not stop in)

Kmart today has a relatively weak presence in the Northwest, and stores continue to quietly close with little to no mention, such as the one in Tualatin, Oregon, just south of Portland.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 03 Oct 2012 16:21
by nysw3636
pseudo3d wrote:Wow! Thanks a bunch!
It should be known that in early June 1995, Kmart announced another round of closings. Again, 72 was the magic number, with all stores on that list closed by January 1996, with Texas and California being the biggest hits. I have that list as well if needed.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 06 Oct 2012 21:38
by Ephrata1966
Three Kmart stores in the Houston area closed in 1994. Two of them were on FM 1960, but one was a 1974 store and one was a 1979 store. The 1973 store was later a Hobby Lobby, but they ended up moving in the early 2000s to a former Target from the early 80's which had itself moved.

The 1979 store was also taken by Hobby Lobby, but has stayed put, even though there also was a Target from the early 80's across the street which moved! Also, MacFrugal's (since absorbed into Big Lots) had stores both next to the 1979 Kmart and the old Target closer to the 1973 Kmart. The MacFrugal's/Big Lots next to the 1979 Kmart is a former Kroger greenhouse. I wonder if now that the Randalls down the street from this plaza has closed (which happened two years ago), the Food Town across from that (which was a Food Lion, and is across from the relocated Kroger) might want to take the former Randalls site, and then maybe Big Lots can go to where Food Town was.

Also, the Hobby Lobby in The Woodlands is a former Kmart which appears to have been remodeled not long before it closed, perhaps in 1990 when the big logo change happened. Coincidentally, the Wal-Mart built in 1984 which had been next to this Kmart (which I assume was built around the same time) moved across the street in 1990 because it couldn't be expanded. The new store was about twice as large, but wasn't a Supercenter, and still had the old 80's hyphen (not star) logo on the signs. This store finally moved to a Supercenter in 2007, which ironically appears to have been one of their last stores to have the star logo (and "Supercenter" in the name)! The old 1984 store was later a Bud's Discount City, but that closed around the same time as the Kmart, and became a Ben Franklin Crafts which closed around the same time the Hobby Lobby opened. Ironically, the Ben Franklin Crafts here closed around the same time as Bud's Discount City stores other than the one here.

And I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like the Hobby Lobby in Tomball was a Wal-Mart, almost next door to a current Wal-Mart which was built in 1994 and made a Supercenter in 1999. Also it's ironic how considering all that's gone on in The Woodlands, there's a Kmart from 1994 in Tabb, Virginia which had a Ben Franklin Crafts for a neighbor, which closed one year ago. This had been a Super Kmart, but the grocery section is closed now. So it's really ironic how the store now has the 90's Kmart logo by itself (without "big") the same way that the regular Kmart in The Woodlands likely did in the early 90's. An early Supercenter paired with an early Sam's Club opened in Conroe TX, north of The Woodlands, around 1992.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 11 Oct 2012 17:31
by Brian Lutz
There was another round of closures with the bankruptcy in 2001, which is where the local store in Bellevue closed. On a couple of different occasions Costco considered building a store there (one time a concept for a Costco grocery store, the second time a conventional Costco warehouse) but backed out both times, mostly hindered by a zoning issue related to a stream that ran under the parking lot that would have made developing the site prohibitively expensive. It wasn't until last year that the city finally made a variance on the site that allowed it to be redeveloped. Since then, the former Kmart store got subdivided, with half the store turned into a Walmart Neighborhood Market (one of the first ones in WA) and the other half turned into LA Fitness.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 26 Oct 2012 21:46
by cal78
Just Found Out the Other Day the Kmart at 77 Chilpancingo Parkway Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
is Closing, a great Example of A Late 60's Kmart.

Re: Kmart 2000 closures

Posted: 18 Feb 2015 13:54
by winndixiepublix
They used to be a Kmart at the Lauderhill Mall in Lauderdale Lakes, FL That Kmart was a Zayre until Ames closed all Zayre stores then becoming Kmart in 1992 as a upgrade to replace a smaller Kmart which was no good. The Lauderhill Mall store which opened in 1992 was next door to Winn-Dixie. That Kmart closed in 2000