We are taking a look at this pretty typical strip plaza in Centreville, Virginia today. Centreville is not a “town,” but a commercial and population node consisting mostly of this kind of development. So it doesn’t look like much out of a car window, or otherwise.
But there are a couple of kind of interesting things here. First is this Planet Fitness:
Most Planet Fitness locations are in existing buildings or storefronts, as is this one. Strip mall storefronts like this are generally unremarkable. There are a million of them, some brand-centric, some modified, some one-off. But sleuthing and recognition of brand-specific elements can reveal the history of a shopping center like this.
I did not know what this storefront was, and I’m only looking at it now because of this Facebook post I saw the other week:
Now that’s funny. They didn’t even bother to cover up the old Sears exit-signage text, which could just be made out.
This was not a Sears department store, like the huge ones that anchored malls or occasionally stood alone. It was apparently a Sears Hardware, which, like the Sears Outlet stores, sold a reduced selection of Sears products in a strip-mall footprint/format rather than a massive full-line department store. And yes, if you look up “Sears Hardware” store photos, many of them have this exact facade! Here’s one in particular in its Sears days.
You can imagine a world, in fact, where Sears was able to transition into a category-killer, big-box role rather than simply slowly dying off as an outmoded department store. But that didn’t happen.
Also in the strip, in the central space, is this military-only discount department store:
The Google review photos kind of look like a cross between a Kohl’s and a Kmart. This space was previously a Shoppers Food Warehouse supermarket. I think it’s likely that was the original tenant, or at least always a supermarket.
Here’s another old Shoppers, in nearby Chantilly, Virginia. This one was split between an Aldi and a Tile Shop, while the Centreville found an unusual tenant for the full space in that military store.
A gym in an old Sears outlet, and a military-only discount department store in a space vacated by a mostly defunct local supermarket chain. And some Korean restaurants, which reflect Centreville’s status as a Korean-American hub and the region’s junior Koreatown (after Annandale, Virginia).
The coming and going and remaking and reinventing in a space which is itself so drab and ordinary.
Related Reading:
What If Suburbia Still Looked Like This?
Also nearby, there was a Sears Appliance and Hardware Store in the Franklin Farm shopping center (between US 50 and the Dulles Toll Road) until a few years ago. Now it's a Launch trampoline park!