A Tale of Two McDonald's Locations in Wanye County

It's no secret that some McDonald's locations are outdated or feature an awesome theme. For us retail fanatics, its a pleasure to step foot and see relics of the past or visit a location that is unique in its theme. For McDonald's anymore, not so much. I can understand them wanting to update old locations (such as the ones in this post) with no theme, but for those locations that do carry a theme, it makes me mad to just ditch the theme to go for another generic cookie-cutter style after remodeling. Personally I'm far more likely to go a unique location because it is unique! That's what makes it so special. 

Well anyways, the focus of this post are the McDonald's locations in Newark, NY followed by a quick peek at the Ontario, NY location. I didn't take a lot of pics at these locations, so I thought why not combine the two together to make one post. I have no doubt that these two will be remodeled someday, if they haven't been already. It does appear that Ontario got a slight remodel inside but nothing exterior wise.

NEWARK, NY:

ONTARIO, NY:

Binghamton's University Plaza

Once again, I must start this post off with a disclaimer of not knowing a lot about the history of this particular mall nor can I find a lot of information about the mall. So some of the maps below map have anchor placement in the wrong spot.

I can definitely say that this place was once a mall thanks to past Google Earth satellite imagery. (see below) I believe the anchors to have been Kmart and Ames. I was able to confirm that Kmart operated a store here thanks to a local news article. 

Similar to how both the Camillus Mall and Fairmount Fair Mall were redeveloped, this mall too was repurposed but instead by other means. Thanks to its proximity to Binghamton University, the mall be would ultimately wind up being a site for student housing with a small strip mall to serve the students. But some changes did occur before the housing project would occur. While it is a little change, it is worth noting that the Kmart store closed in 1999 and was used as a call center for various companies. I believe the Ames and perhaps even parts of the mall would be used for the same purpose for bit too.

In this 1994 satellite view, we can see a building design that is hard to deny being a mall:

Flash forward to 2002, we can see things are so lively based on this view:

You can definitely see some cars clustered around the south end of what was likely the Kmart.

2006's view shows some changes seeing some parts of the mall being demolished.

2011 brings very little change to the property, though it is evident that at least a few shops must be open to attract the amount of cars seen. Planet Fitness also opened at some point in the lower right.

The next change for 2017's view is a major one. This change caught me off guard at the time when I visited the property in person because satellite view hadn't showed any changes from the 2011 view but now does. The pictures that follow the satellite view are my own and come from 2017 while construction was occurring.

I don't believe this clock tower is a leftover from the mall, but I can't dismiss the possibility.

This view would basically be the mall corridor.

Construction

A special thanks to Google Earth and its historic satellite views for being able to provide some information on this property.

Kmart #7083

This post comes from outside the blog's coverage area.

A new year brings more posts. As is the custom, we will continue to take tours around Kmart stores on a monthly basis until I've blogged about all of the ones I've been too. Obviously, we know the company is currently in a hot mess and what is to come remains uncertain though the most likely option would be total liquidation.

Anyhow, this store is not on any closing list as of this writing, so lets take a look at one of the remaining two Kmart stores left in all of western Pennsylvania.