Kmart #7294 - Vero Beach, FL - The Klosing Koncludes

Kmart #7294

1501 US Highway 1, Vero Beach, FL - Indian River Plaza

     While I still have one more post-closure tour from this place to write about eventually, today's post will be my last of the five sets of photos I took documenting the closure process of the Vero Beach Kmart (coming to you at long last!). While the Vero Beach Kmart closed for good on December 1, 2019, my final visit to this store while in operation happened on November 21, 2019, about a week and a half prior to the official closure date. While probably good for business (but bad for me to work in a drive down here), the closure of the Vero Beach Kmart happened on Black Friday weekend. While I would have loved to make the trip here to document the final day, I got stuck working that entire weekend - the joys of working retail (which is much less fun than driving around documenting retail, trust me!). That being said, these photos from a week and a half out will serve as our final farewell to the Vero Beach Kmart, so let's jump into this:

     A week and a half prior to the closure, it was really beginning to feel like a stereotypical store closing sale. While my coverage of the liquidation up to this point showed the store in a semi-normal state, today's tour will certainly feel much different once we step through those doors. My prior visit to this store happened on Halloween 2019, although in the three weeks between my two trips, the store began to empty out to a much higher degree, sections of the store were being dismantled, and fixture sales were in full swing (as we can tell by that guy loading his new shelf into that trailer parked out front). It's all you could ever hope to see in a closing sale, so let's head inside and see it for ourselves:

     Stepping through the entrance and looking toward the back of the building, we see this aisle with some deep-discount clothing lining the center of it, with the jewelry counter also visible to my right (where you can find a deeply-discounted necklace to go with the bargain-priced new outfit of yours - just don't let your friends at the party know you're rocking some of Kmart's liquidation designs!).

     Fashion tips aside, we'll get back on track with our tour by turning right into the hardlines side of the store, following my usual loop through the building. The selection of merchandise was certainly thinning out, with empty space from removed shelves becoming home to random pallet drops of large items being pushed out from the back.

     Following the closure of this store's pharmacy in the late 2010's, new shelving was installed in front of the windows to block the space from view. With the closing entering the final stretch, the shelving in front of the old pharmacy was removed, exposing the counter to us once again.

     In much livelier times the pharmacy looked like this. Now the rest of the store was on its way to looking like the old pharmacy space - dead and abandoned.

     All the shelving along the front wall was removed, with any remaining merchandise consolidated into the aisles out front. After who knows how many years of sitting in the same spot, a lot of nasty gunk was left to build up under those shelves.

     Another one of the usual sights at a store closing: a totally empty aisle. I believe this was an aisle in the former health and beauty department along the front wall.

     Some pools were used to fill a void where a row of shelving was removed, placing those in the middle of the office supply department now.

     We're looking toward the seasonal department in this photo, with grocery on the other side of the aisle.

     Christmas decorations were placed in some empty space in one of the grocery aisles, so you could stock up on garland and crackers for the Christmas party (to which you'll be showing off that new Kmart outfit from before!).

     Another grocery aisle had become home to toys. As we'll see in a moment, the original toy department had been mostly dismantled by this time, leaving all the remaining toys to relocate over here.

     In addition to Christmas merchandise from before, there was still plenty of summer and Halloween stuff for sale too, so Kmart had all your seasonal occasions covered.

     The main portion of the seasonal department had become home to pallets of Christmas trees, a much less classy presentation for the trees than we would have seen in Christmases past.

     Beyond the seasonal department, as we move further into the back right corner of the store, we find it totally empty. Prior to the closure, we'd have been looking at toys immediately to my right, with sporting goods and hardware following that. Now all we see is a lone employee in a large empty space hauling a pallet of scrap - a sad scene for sure.

     Turning the camera a little more to the left, we can better focus on the pure emptiness back here.

     Continuing along the back main aisle, some pallet drops of furniture appear on the inner part of the aisle, with the fixture sale piling up along the back wall (where furniture and small appliances used to be).

     Sadly, the fixture sale here was quite boring. It was all shelves, racks, tables, and such - with no fun Kmart relics appearing that I saw. 50 feet of commercial grade metal shelving isn't really something I needed lying around the house, so I left here without buying any fixtures.

     In front of the fixture sale was some more furniture, most of which were the old display models now up for sale.

     Fixture sales continued along the back of the store into the area of the old Electro-pli-mattress department, ending at the transition into men's clothes.

     Plenty of clothing racks for sale, but no bluelight. As much as I probably don't need a spinning blue light on top of a pole, one of those would have made for an interesting conversation piece for the living room, or a really funky nightlight.

     From the back of the store, here's a look down one of the center cut through aisles, where housewares and some other random merchandise were thrown together.

    Taking a quick diversion into the housewares department, here's a look at some more empty shelving as the selection of merchandise thinned out.

     Moving further along, here's another cut through aisle, this one being the aisle that separates the clothing from the hardlines side of the store.

     Crossing that transition, here's a look into what remained in the softlines half of the store. While the hardlines merchandise was thinning out, there were still lots and lots of clothes for sale here. All of the clothing departments were stocked quite full, even with most merchandise over here marked at 80% off.

     While there were plenty of baby clothes for sale, all the other baby related merchandise was in slim pickings during this visit. We have some boxes of diapers and car seats along the wall, but most of the aisles of baby merchandise were removed, making this one of the largest empty holes on the softlines side of the store.

     Since the shelves in the baby department appeared to be freshly removed, I poked around the area a bit to see if any relics had been uncovered upon the shelves' removal. Wandering around, it didn't take me long to spot the nametag in the photo above! Since the nametag had the "Big Kmart" logo on it, it had to be hiding under that shelf for at least 20 years (and who knows how long it's even been since Tina last worked here too). Me being me, I decided try salvaging the nametag (as I figured I could clean it up), however, it was stuck to the floor (as that's some high quality gunk we're looking at there). Me still being me, when the nametag wouldn't budge from the floor, I walked over to the wall and grabbed an empty peghook to use as a prybar to lift the nametag up. My idea half-worked, literally. I was able to lift up a portion of the nametag, and when I tried to yank it off the rest of the way, I snapped it in half. The part of the nametag that said "Tina" on it went flying into the air, and the rest stayed stuck to the floor. Since I broke it I gave up after that, but we still have this photo to remind us of Tina's contributions to this store, as well as AFB's dumb ideas.

     Leaving the baby department, we have plenty more clothes to see. With all the clothes in here, I'd have to imagine there was still a lot of it left to sell on the last day (unless the Black Friday weekend shoppers really picked this place clean).

     Along the left side of the building, here's a look toward the long-closed KCafe.

     After the cafe was closed, it was converted into space for the clothing department (the junior's department specifically). Even nearing the end the old cafe was still serving that purpose, just a little more empty looking than it would have looked in the past.

     Nearing the end of our loop, here's one last look at the check lanes as we get in line to make our final purchases...

     Even though this store never displayed its "Store Closing" banner on the outside of the building, it did find itself a home here in front of the check lanes. Quite appropriately, the placement of the banner allowed the store's thank you sign to read as "Thank you for Shopping Kmart Store Closing" - I don't know if that was intentional or purely coincidental, but regardless, it was fitting.

     So at long last, that concludes my coverage of the Vero Beach Kmart closing sale! (However, if you'd like to see more, Cape Kennedy Retail took a set of photos at this store in its 3rd to last day in operation, which you can view here). While I would have loved to come back one more time near the end, I did come into this trip thinking it would be my final visit to my local-ish Kmart of 4 years, so I left without any regrets. Even though I'd only shopped at this store occasionally through its final few years, it was a fun change of pace to still have a Kmart within reasonable driving distance. I grew up with Kmart, so it was sad seeing my last little fragment of the chain close up in my area. As of today I now live three hours away from my next closest Kmart, located in Miami, one of three Kmart stores left in the mainland United States as of the writing of this post. I've been to that Kmart in Miami once (and you can view my tour of that store here), and that Kmart was a sad shell of its former self when I visited in Summer 2021. At least when Kmart closed in Vero Beach, the store still looked and felt "normal" with fully stocked departments and a typical assortment of merchandise you'd expect from a large discount retailer. The Kmart of the 2020's is basically an oversized clearance outlet, and it was a really sad experience walking around that Miami store. I give the employees of that store so much credit for keeping the place up as best as they can with what merchandise they have to work with, but the experience at that store was so much different from the Kmart we all remember. The Kmart we all remember is essentially gone, even if three stores still exist out there in name. It's a tragedy what happened to Kmart (and Sears too), but at least Kmart's downfall didn't go unnoticed. Unlike many chains of the past, Kmart will live on for many years more due to the hundreds (if not thousands) of photos all of us in this community took to keep the memory of this chain alive.

     Anyway, while my coverage of the Vero Beach Kmart's closure is done, I still have the post-closure coverage to bring to you before long. That post will explore what's become of this building since Kmart's departure, so keep a lookout for that! In addition, there will still be plenty more interesting stores to explore here on MFR in the future, so be sure to keep an eye out for more new content from myself and the other contributors!

So until the next post,

AFB