Thursday, November 19, 2020

Greenbrier Valley Mall

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

After taking a look at the Kmart that served as an anchor to the Greenbrier Valley Mall, I thought we'd take this opportunity to tour the mall itself. As mentioned in the Kmart post linked, the mall was anchored originally by a Heck's department store which became a store called LA Joe's. The other original anchor was Stone & Thomas which was in turn taken over by Peebles. This location did not become an Elder-Beerman which makes a lot of sense as the space used was rather small. 

The Peebles store was among the many that actually did see a Gordman's re-branding. Sadly though it would be short lived with Gordman's demise. This mall is technically now anchorless, although a Save a Lot kind of serves as a shadow anchor with no direct mall connection. The Save a Lot was previously IGA. 

The mall itself is small and very appropriate in size for the area. The one thing that makes the property stand out though is its architecture and the quite abundant use of shingles. Hopefully the mall can survive  into the future, but it is hard to say if it will at this point.












As you can see here, Stone & Thomas pretty much occupied a half of the back side of the mall.





























Tuesday, November 3, 2020

Former Kmart #7582

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

Our November tour of a former Kmart is a bit of a special one because this location was a mall anchor. Kmart here served as an anchor to the Fairlea, WV (near Lewisburg) Greenbrier Valley Mall. The now empty Kmart spot was originally a Heck's department store and later briefly a store called L.A. Joe's.  Kmart demolished the store and rebuilt a new store which opened in 1993. As a result, we end up having your typical 1990s styled Kmart layout- though the store did have a unique exterior that made use of shingles to match the mall's exterior.