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| Photo courtesy of Google Streetview |
Kmart #7147 / Tampa Mall
5400 East Busch Boulevard, Tampa, FL
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| Today's post is a presentation of Hillsborough County retail |
It has been way too long since I've written a post about anything Kmart related! I think the last time I wrote about Kmart, they were still a viable chain! Anyway, as of the writing of this post in late 2025, there are still 2 1/4 Kmart stores (somehow) still open - 1 in Guam, 1 in the US Virgin Islands, and whatever the heck that sad excuse of a mini-store is in Miami. Essentially, the real Kmart is but a memory unless you want to travel to either of those outlying US island territories that have managed to hold onto true full-sized Kmarts for this long. As someone who shopped at Kmart regularly for the vast majority of his life (all the way until the last store within 100 miles of me closed in 2020), it's a sad reality to know Kmart is essentially gone. Even though I'll never see a true Kmart again (unless I go to that weird little store in Miami, which is a shell of its former self), I still have a number of Kmart-related tours in my backlog. While the majority of those tours are of closed or repurposed Kmart buildings, I still have at least 4 tours of operational Kmart stores left for some point in the future, so that's something to look forward to I suppose. Sadly, I didn't make it to the Temple Terrace Kmart before it closed in 2018, so we'll be exploring this store in its afterlife, but after we learn a little more about its history first:
The Temple Terrace Kmart opened on September 20, 1979, joining a number of existing Kmarts scattered around the Tampa Bay area. As one of Kmart's 7000 series stores, this was one of the chain's medium-sized locations, coming around 70,000 square feet and a common choice for a suburban area like this.
Throughout the 1980's and early 1990's, Kmart must have done some decent business in town, especially considering it was the only major discount store in Temple Terrace (following the closure of a Woolco a few blocks west on Busch Blvd. in 1982 - which was technically just over the border in Tampa). Because I had to find a way to tie this post into Albertsons somehow, the advertisement seen above, published in 1994, tells pharmacy customers from the short-lived Temple Terrace Albertsons that their pharmacy records were transferred to Kmart following that store's closure. I thought this as was an interesting way to tie these two stores together!
Not long after acquiring those pharmacy files in 1994, Kmart announced it was interested in building a much larger store in Temple Terrace, interestingly enough, right across the street from the original Albertsons on Fowler Avenue. The property in question, which was home to a number of homes and small businesses, was proposed to be annexed into the city following the developer's acquisition of all the individual parcels. Once the property was acquired and the annexation complete, Kmart was to build a new 24-hour 123,000 square foot store there to replace the then 14-year-old Busch Boulevard location.
A sketch of the new Temple Terrace Kmart was included with this follow-up article, showcasing the new store's "Mediterranean-revival" style facade. The updated facade was done to appease locals who were concerned the new store would bring "unnecessary noise, pollution, and crime" to the area, with the developers hoping that dressing up the store would help locals view it in a classier light. In addition to that, the developers were also hoping the new facade would better compliment the area's architectural style to appease the city council, who would ultimately have the final say in approving the relocation plan.
By March 1995, between mounting pressure from locals who still weren't happy about the new store, a seemingly long battle trying to win city council's approval for the annexation plan, and Kmart's own internal turbulence, these three reasons were cited for Kmart backing out of the plans for the new Fowler Avenue store.
After backing out of the relocation plans, Kmart decided to focus on expanding the existing Busch Boulevard store instead to bring it up to the chain's modern standards for the 1990's, a project that received much less resistance from city council and locals (unlike what Albertsons faced trying to build a new store next door).
Kmart's expansion project began in 1998 and included a 35,000 square foot addition to the existing store, a new indoor and outdoor garden center, and an updated facade. That 1998 expansion was the last Kmart ever did to this building, as outside of a signage swap or two, we all know what the chain began to face going into the 2000's and 2010's...
Unlike a lot of Kmart stores, I'd have to say this location had a really good run, lasting all the way until 2018 when Kmart closed its last stores in the Tampa Bay area. My first visit to this building occurred in December 2019, about a year after Kmart closed, and found the building still sitting empty at that time.
The late 1990's facade did a really good job of updating this store, making it feel much more modern than what this store would have looked like prior.
While Kmart did update the facade, the entryway was left in its original place, keeping its original 1970's configuration all the way to the end (minus the addition of the automatic swinging doors in the 1990's on either side of that set of manual doors, which is original from the 1970's).
Looking through the windows, the interior of the store still looked and felt like an older 1970's Kmart too, even considering the work done in 1998. It seems like most of Kmart's expansion projects of 1960's and 1970's stores in the 1990's didn't make them feel too much more modern - must be those giant air diffusers that age these stores more than they should!
Looking straight back across the salesfloor, housewares would have been located directly in front of us, with electronics in the very back where you see those gray rectangles on the wall.
Angling the camera a little more to the left, the old service desk comes into view, as well as an abandoned broom.
The right side of this store appears to have been home to the clothing departments, which we can see a little bit of in this photo.
When I was here in 2019, I noticed a small banner off to the side of the building stating "Tampa Mall Coming Soon". At the time there wasn't much online about what "Tampa Mall" was, but having heard of similarly-named places in the past, I figured it was a vendor mall that had leased this building.
After suffering some setbacks following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Tampa Mall wouldn't open for business until 2022. Seeing that the place had opened at long last, I decided to stop by here again that September to see how the building had been transformed. I know these vendor malls typically don't have the biggest remodel budgets, so I was hoping to find some fun Kmart remnants inside. However, as I walked up to the building on this particular day, I found locked doors and a sign taped to the window stating "Temporarily Closed". In addition to myself, those cars parked in front of the doors were vendors who pulled up also looking confused as to why the mall was closed and trying to figure out how to access their booths.
After striking out in September, I happened to be back in the area once again in December 2022. This time, I had success, with the "Now Open" banner signifying I could finally go inside to see what this place was all about!
Stepping inside, we spot that large air diffuser we saw through the windows in 2019. Unlike the emptiness from 2019, we now see the building filled to the brim with lots of booths selling a variety of random things.
Even though the tall booths block a lot of the sightlines, the floors and lights are all carryovers from Kmart, and from the correct angles, the building still felt much like a Kmart inside.
With many of these old Kmart buildings (at least in Florida) either getting subdivided, gutted, or turned into not-very-publicly-accessible new lives like storage units or offices, it was nice to visit a former Kmart that still felt much like a Kmart inside. A building like this really makes me wax nostalgic for the days of Bluelight Specials!
The photo above was taken inside the "Dollar Store and More" booth, which was a very large space that took up much of the building's back right corner (acting almost like an anchor of sorts). It was packed with all kinds of random stuff (as we can see here), and was one of two such "Dollar Stores" in the mall (the other being much more interesting in terms of classic Kmart remnants, and we'll see that one in a little bit).
The current vendor mall is set-up as a grid of walkways surrounding all the various booths. If I remember correctly, there are three horizontal corridors spanning the width of the building, with a number of corridors spanning the building from front to back as cut-throughs, like the one above.
An extra-wide corridor was placed in alignment with the front doors, with the extra space used for various tables for people to sell stuff on a temporary basis compared to the more permanent booths.
Outside of the two larger "Dollar Store" spaces, a lot of the other random booths in here seemed to lean heavily toward selling clothes and accessories, with some other places like cell phone/electronics booths, vape booths, and home decor booths scattered around. There was also a food court as well.
Plenty of clothes for sale, as well as plenty more giant round air diffusers to spot too!
As I was putting this tour together, I couldn't remember the exact placement of some of these shots in the mall's grid, as I was randomly zig-zagging through this place instead of walking around it in any kind of pattern. As such, some photos, like the one above, were just randomly stuffed into the flow of this post in a place where I hope it makes sense!
In the back right corner of the store was the "Game Zone", which was an arcade of some kind carved out of a portion of Kmart's backroom space. Had the Game Zone been open when I was here, it would have been interesting to see what Kmart remnants could have been lurking in there!
Looking across the back wall, we see the Game Zone in the distance, with the restrooms corridor visible after the row of massage chairs. I believe where I was standing would have been roughly where Kmart's electronics department used to be located.
Turning around, here's a look down the back wall looking toward the store's left side.
The other dollar store in this building was located through those orange propped-open doors, opening into an area Kmart had most recently been using as backroom space. However, in Kmart's early days, this wasn't backroom space but...
…the original Kmart Cafeteria! After Kmart closed their cafeterias in the 1990's (most likely before this store received its expansion in 1998, if I had to guess), many were just walled off like this and turned into storage space. While there weren't any other super-obvious remnants in this vendor space like decor or restaurant fixtures, these brick-style red tiles were a distinctive feature of the old cafeterias, and still remain here today!
Most Kmart cafeterias were located in the back of the store like this, although I have seen some oddball locations (like a former Grant's store) that would put the cafeteria wherever it would fit, such as on the left side of the building.
While in the cafeteria dollar store, I started poking around and looking at some of the random merchandise, noticing a few interesting items while I was browsing. One of those items was this case of "Shoupies" - I wonder how these stack up to to the original Sharpies they so closely mimic in style!
The cafeteria dollar store also had a large selection of accessories and pieces for a landline phone setup, much like the Kmart electronics department of 2018 would have had too! Guess this stuff is right at home in this building!
Now that I have a pack of Shoupies and a lifetime supply of phone cable in my possession, we're back out in the main salesfloor for another look across the back of the store. The above photo was taken from within Kmart's expansion space, which you can tell from the lighting's change in direction.
Other than extending back a little further, the expansion doesn't feel too much different than the original space. If it weren't for all the booths in the way, this photo would look from the back of the expansion space toward the front of the store, near the interior garden center entrance.
The garden center doors are visible in the background of this photo. The interior of the garden center was repurposed into the mall's food court, which I didn't get a photo of due to how busy it was. The outdoor garden center wasn't being used if I remember right, and just sits empty now.
Leaving the food court area, here's a look across the front of the building, with the old pharmacy box visible in the distance.
Off to the right side of this photo, you can see where the old Kmart pharmacy space was repurposed into an ice cream and taco stand.
I thought it was interesting to see the pharmacy turned into a food stand, and the conversion appears to have worked out rather well!
Back outside, that's what's going on at the old Temple Terrace Kmart these days. This is certainly one of the best preserved former Kmart stores in the Tampa Bay area anymore, so if you ever yearn for the days of Kmart and don't want to take a very long flight to Guam, just head over to Tampa Mall!
Now that we've seen everything on this side of Busch Boulevard, it's time to head elsewhere in town for our next post. Just as a programming note, my next post will go live over on AFB on Saturday, December 6, 2025 - AFB's 12th anniversary. Being an anniversary post, the blog's tenured readers will know I like to save something slightly more interesting than usual for the occasion, so be sure to come back then for a very fun supermarket tour right here in Temple Terrace!
Until the next post,
AFB
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