Showing posts with label Hammock Landing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hammock Landing. Show all posts

Sunday, March 29, 2020

Sacrilegious Deals - Five Below (former Family Christian Bookstore) - Hammock Landing - West Melbourne, FL


This was a surprise to see when I got here- I can't remember if these were from when I was photographing the also under-construction (but much farther along) HomeGoods in the ex-hhGregg, but it's clear Hammock Landing was in a period of upheaval at this time!

Also, I guess the opening date shown here kind of exposes how long I've been sitting on these photos. Whoops.


The storefront here is being carved out of what used to be a Family Christian Bookstore, and a rotating list of tenants in the other slot. Family Christian went out with the rest of the chain in 2017. Of course, saying this was the "former Family Christian Bookstore" is fairly disingenuous; what was already a generic storefront has been completely gutted and rebuilt for it's new tenant.


Five Below is situated on the "corner" of Hammock Landing, behind this little square of landscaping and benches. (And no fountain! It's circle shaped! WHY DID YOU MAKE IT PLANTS AND NOT A FOUNTAIN?). We can also see a much smaller Coming Soon sign here.


This is probably my favorite shot from this little set; it's a good angle and I have most of the storefront. It's interesting to see here what's been kept from the original storefronts despite the extreme renovation on the rest.

Now, let's fast forward to September 2019; a little while after this store had opened.


An approaching shot of the store shows it's shiny new (painfully generic) facade, as well as an almost copy-paste string of cars in front of it.


Five Below is an interesting store to me- one that I think sort of flies under the radar. I'm not sure if it's the company overall evolving over time, or maybe it's regional, but Five Below has gone from, in my childhood, an upmarket Dollar General, to well... closer to a modern 5&10 store, swapping the "cents" for "dollars". Which I guess is also what Dollar General is... but I think Five Below embodies it better.


At this time Five Below was selling a bunch of pool items outside the store- yes, in September! The beach never closes in the sunny South.


Going inside, we see Five Below's unique decor. I'm not sure how I'd describe it- It has shades of the "Faux Seedy" aesthetic that a modern Spencers attempts, but also reminds me of those over-designed "super cool" journals with tiny locks on them you'd get from the Scholastic Book Fair. Someone else has got to remember those.

In this shot we can see a lot of cheap clothes, sun hats, and sandals. Definitely geared towards stereotypical "girls stuff".


Even the art supplies aisle is becoming encroached by pink. It's a bit perplexing, really. They're art supplies!


Looking this way we can see the start of a rather decently sized makeup section in the background, as well as more stuff coated in pastel. This store really had a lot more makeup and what I'll loosely term "girly stuff" than I honestly expected, since I still classed Five Below as the "upmarket Dollar General" I remembered it as. No cheap Star Wars Nerf guns here.


A small books section and some room decor.


The "Sugar Rush" section, or, in English and not what corporate big wigs think is "trendy", the candy section, was a nice feature. More stores need candy sections, and this is also what helped spark the "modern day 5&10" store feel for me. That and them finally adding $10 and below items after this, literally making them a $5&$10 store.


The tech section here has always interested me. I know a $5 bluetooth speaker or headphones won't be good, but just how much bluetooth speaker can you really get for $5? Unfortunately I go to Five Below almost never, so I've never been able to sate my curiousity.


The charging adapters and cable section stands guard over the posters on the back wall.


Scott The Woz's recent amiibo festival video remarked about how the Animal Crossing amiibos quickly piled up in discount bins and discount stores due to being unwanted. He even name drops Five Below saying "All I did was go to Five Below, a Gamestop, and a dabble on eBay" and he has almost all of them. Ironically, I can see at least three copies of one he was missing in this photo. Should have gone to Florida, Scott!


I wonder if they'd sell me one of these wheelbarrows. Or if they're actually functioning wheelbarrows, for that matter.


Good old overflowing, overstuffed $1 bins.


This overall shot shows just how busy the store is. While I don't remember the store as being particularly crowded, there's definitely a lot here.


The carts here are fairly generic, double-baskets made by I think Technibilt. Amazingly, one has already lost it's handle cover despite this place barely being in business a couple months.


The baskets here are that weird modern type that I never really like. The old design is just... better in almost every way to me. Unlike my current sleep schedule- it is 2:05 AM as I write this, and I am running on pure inspiration and Pokemon speedruns.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this look at a newer store, and a story of growth, in these days surrounded by retail decline.

Monday, January 21, 2019

hhgregg - Hammock Landing - West Melbourne, FL


hhgregg #163
205 Palm Bay Road NE #145, West Melbourne, FL - Hammock Landing

     This hhgregg opened in 2009 as one of the 6 major anchors to the newly built Hammock Landing shopping center in West Melbourne. This location was supposed to survive hhgregg's bankruptcy should they have found a buyer, however when that didn't happen, this store began to liquidate with the rest of the chain. This location closed in May 2017 with the remaining hhgregg stores nationwide.

     Next up for the My Florida Retail Blog will be a short post from the West Melbourne hhgregg store, the only hhgregg that operated in Brevard County. Somewhat rare for hhgregg in their post-Circuit City era rapid expansion, this building was built from scratch as an hhgregg. In the original plans for Hammock Landing, this space in the plaza was originally supposed to go to Linens N' Things. However, shortly after the plans for Hammock Landing were released to the public in 2008, Linens N' Things declared bankruptcy and announced they were closing all of their remaining stores, leading them to cancel their plans for a store here. The developer of Hammock Landing was able to attract hhgregg to be the new anchor for this plaza after Linens N' Things went bankrupt, and the space was redesigned for hhgregg before construction at the site began. Although I was only in this store one time prior to it liquidating, it never seemed to be as busy as their closest competitor, Best Buy, at least to me anyway. That was probably one of the many reasons hhgregg was having the financial troubles they were having the last few years. I'm sure the rapid expansion in the late 2000's didn't help much either.


     Some of the many fliers taped to the window about the changes to store policy going into the liquidation, as well as some other announcements. In addition to all of that, the store hours sign also managed to sneak its way into this photo.


     This was the sight you would see upon entering this hhgregg location. This store was laid out like every other modern hhgregg store - furniture to my right, electronics in the back, and appliances shoved into a small space to my left. Not to steal l_dawg2000's thing, but I have one addition of my own I'd like to add to his list of hhgregg issues: hhgregg issue #29: An electronics store that dedicates most of its salesfloor space to furniture and shoves the electronics in the back isn't a good sign! I've always thought of hhgregg as something similar to Best Buy - a store that sold mainly electronics but also had some appliances. During my one visit here about 6 months before the liquidation, all of the space around me in this photo was filled with displays of sofas, recliners, dining tables, etc. I thought it was odd, as hhgregg would have never been a place where I would have thought to look for a couch. I guess in one of their final attempts to stay afloat was to start shifting into the furniture market, which didn't seem to work well. As l_dawg2000 commented, "Ha, no problem! I agree, seems they had a lot more furniture in the Southaven store than in years past, with lots of empty space where electronics once were. Almost seems like they were sort of stealing Kmart's recipe, which is a sure sign of desperation! [Also, I] just noticed one other thing in your photo: if you look right under that exit sign in the back part of the store (just to the right of the mattress center), there's a restrooms sign with a blue design on it. This same previous décor sign was still in the Southaven store also." Hmm, I completely missed that restrooms sign when I was here! I can't believe I didn't catch that, as I made sure to get photos of the electronics and mattress department from a spot that was practically in front of that sign!


     Looking across the front of the store from the front right corner in this photo.Here you can see some of the remaining furniture I mentioned previously. At this point in the closing (about three weeks in), the furniture, mattresses, and appliances didn't seem to be moving, however the selection of electronics was beginning to grow bare.


     In the corner behind the furniture was the store closing signage station, filled with all the % off tags one could need. Behind that were some signs for someone to hold up at the corner of Palm Bay Road and Norfolk Parkway, although nobody seemed to have the desire to stand outside in the humid 90 degree Florida heat with one this day!


     Moving over to the far right side of the store now, here we can see from the edge of the furniture department toward where electronics begins. Along the right side and back of the building is this area with a lower ceiling over it. To my right was a desk where a few salespeople were sitting and talking among themselves. As l_dawg2000 commented, "This was the area of the Southaven store I remember seeing a lot of electronics in several years ago. Looks like furniture overstock here, but was nearly empty on this side when I went to the one in Southaven. And that was only about a week into the liquidation."


     An empty aisle in the electronics department. The boxes to my right were more pieces of furniture that needed to be sold off.


     Looking toward the “home solutions” department – aka furniture. As the furniture displays began to sell down, some mattress displays were dragged out onto the main salesfloor from the mattress corner in order to make the salesfloor look less empty. Some other random overstock electronics and appliances were brought out onto the floor as well in order to fill in the empty space.


     This was supposed to be the “grand aisle” of the electronics department, which had been pretty much picked bare by this point in the closing. Some more of that hhgregg furniture was dragged over here to fill in the empty void, and possibly convince someone looking over the remaining electronics to take a coffee table home with them too.


     In this photo we see the back wall in the electronics department. All that was really left in this department were a few display TVs and some random cables and accessories.


     This is an overview of the space to which the electronics department was confined to in this store's later days. As you can see here, this part of the store was quite empty three weeks into the liquidation.


     All of the sunshine coming in through the front windows wasn't too kind to this photo, but you can still get a decent look over the main salesfloor here. This space was home mostly to furniture in recent times, with the mattresses directly in front of me dragged out from the mattress center in order for them to get better exposure for the liquidation.


     Like in most modern hhgregg stores, the mattress center was a walled off alcove located in the back left corner of the store. There were still a few mattresses buried back here, however this corner was mostly used to house overstock sofas and recliners for the liquidation.


     The left side of the store was dedicated to appliances. Immediately to my right was a "showroom" type area with small sample kitchen displays, as well as the display ovens. Off in the distance were multiple aisles of refrigerators and washing machines.


     A closeup of the main sign for the appliance department. Under the big sign and to the right of it were kitchen showroom stations, and to the left was open floor space for rows of appliances.


     The main register counter was located at this circular island in the center of the store. In front of the register counter was the sign-up sheet for those interested in buying store fixtures, as well as a table of coffee makers (which included a custom hhgregg tablecloth too).


     Heading back outside for one last look at the now-former West Melbourne hhgregg. Next door you can also see the Hammock Landing Marshalls, and beyond that is Petco. Honestly, I think Marshall's should take over the now vacated hhgregg space to expand their store into a Marshall's/Home Goods combo store, much like the TJMaxx/Home Goods combo that opened in Viera in 2014. That's my idea anyway. This plaza is busy enough that they should be able to figure out something to do with this space before too long, hopefully.

     The photo description you just read was written shortly after this store closed in 2017. By late 2018, just what store was announced to be opening here? As Cape Kennedy Retail said, "You called it."


Family Christian Store
205 Palm Bay Road NE #137, West Melbourne, FL - Hammock Landing

     In addition to the hhgregg closing, as I was leaving that and walking back to my car, I saw this out of the corner of my eye. Hammock Landing was also home to a closing Family Christian Store, which also liquidated the same time hhgregg did. To be completely honest, I had no idea this was here! From the looks of it, this was the only Family Christian Store around for a good distance in each direction. I didn't go inside, but I did get this one photo of the exterior. This place probably opened not long after Hammock Landing was built in 2009, and was about two months into their liquidation at the time I took this photo. As styertowne commented, "I have never seen that logo before. Truthfully, I have only seen this store on Flickr, but it has always been a different logo. The idea of a Christian department store intrigues me!" J. Mc. went ahead to explain to us what Family Christian Stores were all about: "[Family Christian was] basically a Christian products store that sold various bibles, study guides, books by Christian authors, sunday school stuff, and various Christian themed items like WWJD t-shirts, and of course, a big selection of Christian music CDs. Since streaming music, Ebay, and Amazon pretty much cover all of that now I'm not surprised they've fizzled and gone out of business."

     For further coverage of the former West Melbourne hhgregg store, as well as some photos of it now as a HomeGoods, Cape Kennedy Retail did a post about this store which you can read here.

So that's all I have for now. Until the next post,

AFB

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Target #2547 - West Melbourne, FL (Hammock Landing)


Target #T-2547
4305 Norfolk Parkway, West Melbourne, FL – Hammock Landing

     This Target store opened on July 22, 2009, and really hasn’t changed much since.

     We’ve hit the bullseye guys, it’s Target time once again on My Florida Retail! For this post, we’ll be taking a look at the newest of the 5 Target stores in Brevard County, the Target located in West Melbourne (right over the Palm Bay line). This Target opened as the largest of the anchor stores in the Hammock Landing shopping center, and as the center’s most prominent tenant. This Target is quite nice and always seems busy, although of all the Target stores in Brevard, I’m still partial to the old school 90’s built Target a few miles away from here on US 192 (although I also like going to the Viera Super Target for a change every once and a while).


     This Target was built using the company’s usual “airport terminal” style building (a term l_dawg2000 used to describe this style) that Target has used for the last 10-15 years. Even though this store is pushing 10 years in operation now, this place still looks and feels quite new (and some locals still call this place the “new Target” even to this day!).


     This photo is pulled back a bit further, showing more of the building itself. The photos in this Target tour are a mix of photos taken at two different times, in 2015 and 2018. There weren’t many significant changes in that time to be seen here, with the only major changes happening here being the conversion of this store’s pharmacy to CVS and some décor changes in the grocery department, but we’ll see all that in more detail later.


     Here we’re looking from this store’s front entrance toward the left side of the building. In the background you can see an Academy Sports store, a later addition to the Hammock Landing shopping center having opened in 2015.


     Here’s a close-up of the store’s main entrance, showcasing the usual late 2000’s, early 2010’s Target store design. As BatteryMill Retail commented, "This store is my favorite "default" Target store design. It definitely carries both a classic department store and modern feeling, and still holds up very well today!"

     Next, we’ll step inside and see what things look like in there...


     Entering the store, we find the Starbucks and Target Café immediately to my left, both of which are located in front of the store’s main registers. Behind me is the Guest Services counter, which is located immediately to the right upon entering the store.


     Leaving the front of the store behind us, we continue straight from the entrance into the Women’s clothing department. This store is right aligned, with the entrance and clothing departments located on the right side of the building (the opposite of the Target I’m most used to going to, of course, so it throws me off every time I come into this store!)


     This is a look down the main aisle that runs horizontally through the center of the store. We can see all the way across the store in this photo, with clothing and shoes in the foreground. This aisle later transitions into the main aisle that runs through the housewares departments, which is kind of visible in the background.


     Here we’re looking into this store’s back right corner, which is home to men’s clothing and the store’s fitting room. As you can see (and probably have seen already), this store has Target’s P09 décor, so there’s nothing really too special as far as the décor is concerned in this place. (And as far as special and/or outdated Target store décor packages are concerned, there aren’t any wavy neon P97 Target stores that I know of left in the Florida peninsula, and the only P01 stores I knew of just got remodeled or closed in the last few years).


     Moving away from the clothing departments, here’s a look down the store’s main back aisle as we near the baby, toy and electronics departments.


     Like most Target stores built since the P04 era, electronics is located in the back center portion of the store. This store has this rather sleek gray electronics counter, which certainly looks quite modern! I think this counter is original to this store’s opening in 2009, as I believe the more modern Target stores and stores with the recent Electronics reset have a smaller electronics counter than this.


     Moving away from the electronics counter, we move further down the store’s main back aisle to see more of the toy department to my left, and books to my right.


     Here’s a look across the far back wall of this store, looking from seasonal back toward electronics.


     Patio furniture and Easter supplies were the main focuses of the seasonal department when I visited this store in 2018. As you can clearly see here, this photo looks into the patio furniture portion of the seasonal department.


     Standing in the back left corner of the store, here I was standing in the aisle that separated the two portions of the seasonal department. The patio furniture and outdoor decorations were located to my left, while Easter candy and supplies were located to my right. Ahead of me is this store’s grocery department, which we’ll begin to look at closer later on in this post. First though, we’ll jump back to the center of the store for a closer look at the housewares departments.


     Here is a look down the center aisle that separates the hardline and softline sides of the store. In the distance we can see this store’s CVS Pharmacy counter, which is located next to the store’s café.


     Moving into the housewares department, here’s a looks down the main aisle that traverses this part of the store. This photo is one of my 2015 photos, which was taken early in the morning right after this store opened for the day. The early morning timing is why there are so many boxes can carts floating around here, as the store’s stock crew was still working to put out merchandise.


     Jumping ahead to 2018, here’s a much cleaner look through the housewares department, this photo looking back toward clothing. As YonWooRetail2 commented, "Targets are just so much cleaner and neater looking than even the newest Wamarts. And really the prices aren't much different." You may also notice that between 2015 and 2018, the aisle number placards in this store were switched from red and white circles to the more modern gray and white circles, which I believe is the color scheme of the P17 aisle signs.


     Here’s a random look down one of the housewares aisles that branch off from the main one. I thought it was a neat effect how those lamps towered over this particular aisle.


     Here’s a view down the back aisle in the housewares department, this part of the department being home to the bed linens. Now, we’ll move away from housewares and begin to look around the grocery department…


     Near the edge of the housewares departments, here’s a quick peek into the grocery aisles.


     Here’s a look down the main aisle that passes by this store’s grocery department, looking toward the back of the store and seasonal.


     The back left corner of this store was home to more seasonal merchandise, specifically Easter merchandise when I took this picture in early 2018.


     Here’s a look down the store’s left side wall, which contains beverages before transitioning into freezers. Plenty of P09 neon to be seen here too!


     Some of the freezers can be seen in this photo, peeking out from the end of one of the grocery aisles.


     Here’s another look at the main aisle that traverses the front of the grocery department. This store has the expanded grocery/P-Fresh offerings, which we’ll take a closer look at in just a moment.


     In addition to the freezers on the side wall, this store has one or two additional aisles of frozen foods mixed in with the main grocery aisles. Pictured here is one of those additional frozen foods aisles.


     Here’s a close-up photo of one of the picture collages in the grocery department, showcasing some fruits and vegetables.


     Here’s another side wall photo, looking into the store’s front left corner. The fresh foods are located in that large aisle just a few steps in front of me, so let’s go check that out…


     It’s nothing fancy, but I like the concept of P-Fresh and how a non-super store can still offer a small selection of fresh produce, meat, baked goods, etc. You could still get much of your grocery shopping done here if you really wanted to. The “fresh grocery” décor and giant round sign hanging from the ceiling are pretty cool too! However, I’m just warning you though, don’t get too used to how this part of the store looks just yet…


     ...because at some point between 2015 and 2018, Target updated the signage in the P-Fresh section of this store. Out went the neat hanging sign and the old pictures, and in came some new pictures and a blank ceiling. I don’t go to this particular Target all that often, so it threw me off when I saw the big sign over this area had disappeared on this trip! As YonWooRetail2 commented, "Looking at this photo, you may think you're in one of the new "red red" Winn- Dixie's. Only there's not a painted sign "Dairy" in white letters."


     Here’s a close-up of the P-Fresh area with its current look, this particular photo focusing on some of the displays of produce.


     Behind the produce display was a small selection of baked goods, mostly prepackaged breads and pastries. The coffin cooler you see to my right contained prepackaged meats if I remember correctly.


     For some reason, I felt like taking a close-up photo of one of the strips of neon in this place. I never realized this until just recently, but there is a slight difference between the P04 and P09 neon. In the P09 package, there are only these single neon strips on the walls. In the P04 package, there are these same neon strips, as well as some double neon strips mixed in that resemble half of a bullseye.


     I took this photo from the store’s front left corner, this view looking all the way down the front wall toward guest services.


     Leaving the grocery department behind us, here’s a look down the store’s main front aisle. Small appliances and office supplies are to my left, while cleaning products and pet supplies are located to my right.


     Peeking out from behind one of those oversized Target baskets, here’s a look down the main front aisle as we near the front end. To my left is girl’s clothing, and to the right is health and beauty. Speaking of health and beauty, let’s pop down there for a quick look at the pharmacy counter…


     Turning the clock back to 2015, here’s a look at what this store’s pharmacy counter looked like prior to CVS purchasing all of Target’s pharmacies. As BatteryMill Retail commented about the Target Pharmacy sale to CVS, "Honestly I’m not sure the CVS Pharmacy deal was the best one. Prior to their acquisition Target had a “ClearRX” bottle system that was handy in telling apart prescriptions- and that left with their deal. Additionally pharmacies had shorter hours and from other things I heard CVS’ policies were just a downgrade from Target’s pharmacy. Additionally their paint-out and signage sticks out like a sore thumb, they could have easily just added a little subtitle or whatnot." This isn’t the greatest photo in the world considering the shelving is blocking much of our view of the counter, but I’ve gotten much better at getting photos in the 3 years since this one was taken!


     Jumping back to 2018, here’s what this store’s pharmacy counter looks like now as a CVS. Some new signage and paint was installed, but otherwise it’s the same counter we saw in the 2015 image. Even though there were some articles published around the time Target sold their pharmacies to CVS about how people were unhappy about the sale, it seems like their pharmacy counters are still very busy. The Target I go to most often always has people waiting at the counter, and I see lots of people walking around the store with prescription bags.


     Here is a look at this store’s front registers. This store has a total of 13 registers – three (rarely used) express lanes and ten regular lanes. This store does not have self-checkouts, and neither does the other Target a few miles away from here on Route 192.


     In addition to the Starbucks tucked just inside this store’s entryway, this store also has a traditional Target Café featuring Pizza Hut Express. The café is located immediately next to the Starbucks, with which it shares a seating area. In this photo we can see the café in a bit more detail.


     Stepping outside, I will conclude our tour of the Hammock Landing Target with this final photo of the exterior. Even though this store is pushing 10 years old, I still think it’s a pretty modern looking place, both inside and out. As of now, none of the Target stores on the Space Coast or Treasure Coast have been put on the remodel list to the current gray look, although I’m sure they day will come eventually. While the gray look is beginning to grow on me (especially in the Super Target remodels, where the new P17 decor is exceptionally nice), I still like these old school P04/P09 stores in all of their red and neon glory.

So that's all I have for now. Until the next post,

AFB