NOTE: This post comes from outside the blog's coverage area
Going back just a little over three years ago, I made trip down south to visit family in the south. Along the way, I traveled through West Virginia and stopped at multiple Kmart stores including the one we are about to tour. One thing that I must mention is the historic flooding that occured that day which I posted in more detail in this post.
Due to the mentioned flooding, the day I stopped at this Kmart location was the last day it was in operation for a while. The building itself was not affected by the raging waters, but the its only entrance to the parking lot and attached shopping center was. A culvert for a small stream was quickly overwhelmed and this caused the entrance road to be taken out. I still look back on this day and think that I was fortunate to leave when I did. Had I been a few hours later, I could have been stranded.
Eventually after many months of silence, the Kmart surprisingly did reopen with a slight remodel to the newer red decor package. The pictures I have are of the previous decor package before the flooding occured.
Unfortunately, the store did eventually find itself among the many causalities of Kmart's latest bankruptcy wave. It was amazing to me it survived the loss of business thanks to severe weather by even reopening. A lot of previous Kmart stores would of just given up and closed permanently.
I agree with you, it's surprising in and of itself that the store reopened at all, let alone received a slight remodel. And very glad your timing was fortunate, too!
ReplyDeleteThis will go down as one of the retail based memories I've made along the way.
Delete