I Love My Eckerd! - I Love My Island Thrift Store (Former Goodwill, nee-Eckerd #62) - Merritt Island, FL

 I Love My Island is an organization in Merritt Island that does all sorts of great things- it provides for seniors, it organizes youth activities, and helps with crisis relief. And finally, and most interesting to us, is they run a thrift store!

Florida Today, November 9, 1983

This particular thrift store is located at 245 Crockett Blvd, inside a shopping center called Merritt Crossings. Eckerd would open here on November 9th, 1983, likely alongside the Publix that then anchored the center. It would follow the standard trajectory for Eckerd stores of it's age- that is, to last until the late 90s when it was replaced by a freestanding store nearby.

The closest freestanding store in this case would be a pretty early build in 1996, across Crockett Blvd in the parking lot of a Target. The location disappears from newspaper ads by 1993, so it makes sense that the store closed in 1996 if not earlier.

Goodwill would move in come early 1999, after renovating the space the previous year. I don't have a definite date for when they closed, but they're last mentioned at that spot in 2010, and honestly, for Goodwill in this area, that's a long time to stick to one space. I Love My Island shows up by 2015, and so it's likely they opened not long after the organization was founded in 2014.

I don't have a photo of the exterior- but it's not awful much to miss. The facade is simple and themed to fit the plaza, and the sign is just "THRIFT STORE", in block letters. (Not even reused from Goodwill, which I thought at first)

The entryway appears pretty unchanged from the Eckerd days, and as such is pleasingly vintage.

The baskets are unfortunately generic, but are fairly weather beaten to compensate. I'm not sure what the "NOW OPEN" sign is for- the store's been open for several years now.

The bulk of the sales floor is taken up by clothes and a smaller section of furniture, and the whole store, despite a past life as Goodwill, still feels a lot like an old drug store.

What makes it *really* feel like an Eckerd however, is this! The upper wall for what was the pharmacy counter survives, a feature sadly destroyed in so many remodels.

To round off our post, I'd like to showcase some of the retail relics I discovered on this thrift outing.

First up is this pack of Ritz Camera-branded photo paper. 

More modern here, with a Kenmore "intelligent shopper". With how few Sears are left, you probably do need an AI to find a Sears with your product available.

The biggest and most impressive find is this- a boxed JCPenney film-to-tape converter.

There's two cool things about it- first, it appears to be almost brand new and virtually unused.

And second of all, while it's damaged, still has a JCPenney catalog order tag attached to the outside!

With that, it's been Cape Kennedy Retail. Until next time.

Uh Okay Man, Whatever - Former Kmart #3666- Rockledge, FL

Oh Kmart, everyone's favorite ailing discount department store that most people thought already died. Brevard County itself is actually entirely Kmart-less. Not a single one still operates anywhere up or down the county, with the closest store being Indian River County's singular remaining store in Vero Beach. The last Brevard Kmart closed in Palm Bay in 2014, and was rather swiftly replaced by a U-Haul that happily occupies the space. Many of Brevard's other Kmarts however, died much earlier and have suffered far less kind fates. Many went in early closing rounds in 2002, 2003, and 2004.

In Titusville, it has sat largely vacant. A parking lot for the occasional tractor trailer, if anything. Last I heard, it was undergoing internal gutting for an as of yet unknown project. Palm Bay's other Kmart has been split in twain, between an Ace Hardware that closed up shop and a Roses, which if anything can be described as a sickly comedic parody of Kmart itself, being a dingy discount department store that has somehow managed to find success in the model.

Rockledge's store follows a similar story to Titusville's, sitting completely vacant to this day. However, not just this store is dead: it's entire plaza is pretty dreadful. The closest thing to an anchor it possesses is a Bealls Outlet in what was long ago an Eckerd Drugs, which opened to compliment a Florida Choice that never opened (Kroger nixed Florida Choice before it's opening day), which quickly became a Goodings, before closing with the rest of the chain. Since then, it's never had a tenant, save for a small part of it being taken up by Brevard Health Alliance. The rest of the plaza is fairly empty, only a few scattered, quiet, largely non-chain tenants.
 

Desolate parking lots are always eerie

Looking to our right, we can see the very edge of the plaza, hiding behind trees. This shot also showcases the empty state of the parking lot- the entire area around Kmart was actually sort of marked off with cones, indicating that this plaza apparently has no use for surplus parking.
   

Welcome to Kmart- rusty, faded, and with a suspicious smell that makes you reach for the respirator. I'm not sure who painted the facade this color- it's certainly not a Kmart color, or at least any I know of, and I don't believe this space had any tenants after Kmart, except for maybe a few raccoons. Either way, this paint has been here long enough to patchily fade back to a sufficiently weathered state, so even if it's not original, it looks the part. The entrance here, despite being shaded by the facade, has still begun to fade, and the pylons out front have aged significantly worse- flaking paint and having turned a chalky shade of their original colors.

Before we get our (best attempt) at a look inside, lets swing house left and look down the other end of the store. Not much but a long, rather monolithic wall and the garden center at the very end- but we'll revisit that later.

 As we inch closer to the interior, we'll take a quick look at the (sadly) locked doors, which have by a stroke of luck not gone totally opaque from over a decade of mold and dust. Not that the interior is short on either of those, as you'll see, but it seems to have avoided the glass. I'm not sure what the blue striping is; between this and the exterior paint job, this store really has the market cornered on
m y s t e r i o u s  c o l o r s.

Someone drop a horror movie set?

 ......yeah. The interior here is rough. The abandoned Sears and Publix/Food World that share a plaza elsewhere in Rockledge have been abandoned for what is likely far longer, and even they didn't come close to the dreadful state that this place is in. Even peering through the glass I felt like I should have been wearing a particulate mask. Just like Kmart itself, this former location is moldy, forgotten, and falling apart more and more by the day. I imagine even if the surrounding plaza was booming, this space would likely have to be extensively remodeled or flat out demolished due to it's current condition.

The larger interior space seems to have taken up the slack for the vestibule, however, as it's in pretty good condition. Relatively, it may as well be shined to a polish.

The edge of the entrance facade creates an eerie shadow as we look down towards the garden center. In happier days, there likely would have been "GARDEN CENTER" lettering somewhere along here, but it's long been removed and I can't even find mounting brackets that seem to match that lettering.

If the interior looks the most like a horror movie set, then the garden center feels the most like it. A rusty skeleton of metal support poles and rusty brown chainlink, sprinkled with windswept debris and weeds.



Now this looks like an abandoned wreck- plywood over the entrances, miscellaneous, vaguely industrial looking metal debris, and my favorite- unidentified large, dark stains on the concrete ground. I'm assuming the debris was either blown in, or left over from some form of interior/exterior gutting, as I couldn't find see an open entrance anywhere, though I didn't check around back. The roof is actually in pretty good condition, all things considered. All the photographs I've seen of former Target garden centers, abandoned many years later and usually still attached to active stores, have looked far rustier and crumbling than this.



No more flowers and ferns, nothing but brown, (presumably) dead grass is available at this garden center today. I'm curious how it ended up this shade, when I see dead grass it's mostly a hay-like tan, not an almost weak chocolate brown. Matches the rusty chainlink rather well, actually.

Bealls Outlet 467, nee-Eckerd Drugs ####?

To round off this post, we'll take a quick look at the only remaining "major" tenant in Barton Commons- a Bealls Outlet, swallowing up a former Eckerd Drugs space. This is also where the name for this post comes from- when I was just about done photographing the plaza, a dude came out of this store and asked a few different people, including myself, for a few dollars, which he assured he needed for non-sketchy reasons. I mean, very likely that he was a few bucks short on his purchase- but still, it's the weirdly specific denial trope in action. I didn't actually have my money on me at the time, and wasn't intending to go back and get it for this, so I mumbled some kind of excuse to his question, and went on my way.



This has been Cape Kennedy Retail; signing off in 3..... 2..... 1.....

Eckerd #3920 - Minton & Emerson - Palm Bay, FL

Eckerd #3920 / CVS #5230

399 Emerson Dr NW, Palm Bay, FL

     This store opened as Eckerd in September 2002. A fairly short lived store for Eckerd, this location was converted to a CVS when they bought out Eckerd's Florida stores in 2004.

     Here we can see the front of this former Eckerd building. This store was built with a unique exterior look that appears more "old Florida style" to me, so it's quite different from the typical freestanding Eckerd stores of the time (which looked more like this).

     Here is the right side of the store, which faces Minton Road.

     Another view of the front of the store.

     Those "Welcome!" stickers on the door are a remnant from Eckerd. It's always nice to see CVS leave behind some traces of their predecessor!

Knocking out yet another really short post, until the next time,

AFB

Eckerd #84 - Palm Bay Center - Palm Bay, FL

Former Eckerd #84 / Former Dollar General #8401 / NAPA Space Coast Auto Supply

4711 Babcock St. NE, Palm Bay, FL 

     Eckerd originally opened with the rest of the shopping center in 1979. They relocated diagonally across the intersection to store #2039 in 2001 (we'll see that store later in this post), which became CVS #3294 in 2004 when they purchased Eckerd's stores in Florida and Texas. Dollar General opened here not long after Eckerd left, and closed in June 2014 when they relocated to a freestanding store at 4290 Babcock St., a little north of here. The space is currently vacant, and one of three vacant anchors in this shopping center.

     And now we return to the Palm Bay Center, home of the former Palm Bay Kmart, this time to look at its former Eckerd/Dollar General store. This photo and the two interior ones were taken back in April 2014, and still show the Dollar General in operation.

     Another exterior photo, but from January 2014.

     I nearly scrapped this photo, but at the last minute I decided to upload it anyway. It's an interesting view. This was one of the very first retail photos I ever took, and one of only 3 I've ever deemed good enough to upload from that first day. As Retail Retell said, "Wow! Cool story!"

     Stepping inside the Dollar General for a moment, here's a look down the back wall of the store toward Eckerd's old pharmacy counter. These lower ceilings sometimes get removed by later tenants during remodels, so it's neat to see this glaring Eckerd remnant remain here.

     Close-up of the American flag Dollar General hung on the lower ceiling where Eckerd's pharmacy was once housed. I thought it was a nice touch to the store.

     And here's a quick photo of the interior of the former Eckerd/Dollar General as of January 2015, as a follow-up to the photos of this place from January and April 2014 above. I couldn't get a good exterior photo of this place in its current empty form due to a bus parked out front (which never moved the whole time I was here), which made a clear view of the exterior difficult to get. Sometime in 2017, this space would eventually be filled by NAPA Space Coast Auto Supply, which you can see some photos of here (as I haven't gotten any more photos of this place since). As andsome96 said, "There's a bit of charm to these strip-mall Eckerd stores built in the 70s-80s era. While they were a bit on the narrow side, they felt more quaint in that respect."

Eckerd #2039 / CVS #3294

1599 Palm Bay Road NE, Palm Bay, FL

     To wrap up this post, here's a look at the store Eckerd #84 relocated to. This Eckerd opened in 2001 and was built on the site of former Scotty's Hardware #79 (whose address was 4690 Babcock Street NE), along with the neighboring Staples store (not pictured - it's to the left of this store). Scotty's was a chain of hardware stores that was based out of Winter Haven and had locations across Florida. Scotty's remained in business until 2005, when the company went bankrupt due to increased competition from Lowe's and Home Depot. This store became CVS #3294 in 2004 when they bought all of Eckerd's stores in Florida.

So until the next post,

AFB

Publix #124 (Original and Replacement) - Merritt Island, FL

Publix #124 (The Original)

745 N. Courtenay Pkwy., Merritt Island, FL - Colonial Park Plaza (Now Palm Cay Plaza)

     Publix #124 originally opened in 1966 as a later era wing store, and the first Publix in Merritt Island. Publix relocated about a mile to the north of here to a larger store at the Merritt Crossings Shopping Center in 1983. This Publix sat empty until at least 1988, when the plaza was renovated and renamed Palm Cay Plaza. Currently the building is split between a Tuesday Morning and Dollar Tree, although I'm not sure what this place was between Publix and Tuesday Morning/Dollar Tree though (as those tenants didn't move to this building until the early 2000's).

     Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have of this store in my archives right now. When I took this photo, I took it thinking nothing from Publix remained at this building. Turns out I was way off on that, as Dollar Tree still uses the original Publix entryway! From the streetview imagery, I don't see any other Publix remnants jumping out at me, but it's still nice to see something from the Publix days survived all these years later at this location.

     Also of note, the Ichiban Buffet in this photo was a former Eckerd, which I believe relocated to Merritt Crossings in 1983 with Publix. That space became New Century Buffet at some point after Eckerd leaving, and within the last few years, changed names to Ichiban Buffet. On a side note, New Century Buffet had the pleasure of being ranked the #1 dirtiest restaurant in Central Florida by Channel 9's dirty restaurant report that they release a few times a year. They actually got that honor a few times, and were notorious for health violations.

     With the history of the original Publix store out of the way, let's head up the road for a look at the 1983-built Publix that replaced this one. Photos of the 1983 store will comprise the majority of this post:

Publix #124 (The Replacement)

239 Crockett Blvd. Merritt Island, FL - Merritt Crossings

     Like I said before, Publix #124 relocated to this location in 1983 to replace the 1966-built Wing store further down Courtenay Parkway. Publix stayed in this spot for 20 years until they built another new store (#893) a quarter mile north on Courtenay Pkwy. in 2003. Around 2005/2006-ish this space was split between Dollar General Market #9859 in the left 2/3rds of the former Publix, and an Aaron's in the right 1/3rd, which has since closed. The Dollar General was a relocation from a store in the old Winn-Dixie plaza across the street.

     A wide view of the entire exterior of the 1983 Publix, including the former Eckerd off to the right (where the 'Thrift Store' sign is, but more on that store at the end of this post). This Dollar General Market was one of the first few prototype DG Market stores opened in the mid-2000's The first DG Market opened near Dollar General's Headquarters in Hendersonville, TN in 2003, and they were very slow with opening these stores for a long time. In 2010, Dollar General finally made a push to begin opening more DG Market stores all over the US to rival stores like Aldi and Walmart, and that push included a refresh of the brand. Currently there are a little over 100 DG Market stores operating nationwide, which is actually very small number compared to Dollar General's 11,000 total stores.

     The exterior is just about all original to Publix, except for those windows where the Aaron's space was added.

     The vestibule is also all original to Publix, including the windows between the vestibule and the main store that were typical of Publix stores from this era. This is the photo where Retail Retell famously commented, "[This vestibule] reminds me of Hobby Lobby." He drew that resemblance from how both Publix's vestibule and Hobby Lobby's had inner and outer sets of windows. Here's a photo of an actual Hobby Lobby lobby (that's actually pretty fun to say!) to compare. Random Retail and l_dawg2000 also agreed there was a very Hobby Lobby-esque vibe here!

     After entering the store and going to the right, you enter the 'market' part of the Dollar General Market, with a pretty decent produce department in the front right corner. You can see the interior windows and the vestibule from Publix in the background. There wasn't much left of Publix once you walked into the store other than that. When the space was split, the flooring and ceiling and most everything else were replaced to meet Dollar General's standards (to which PlazaACME interjected, "Dollar General has standards?!". All the aisles on the right side of the store, which run parallel to the front wall, are the grocery aisles (#1-8), while the rest of the aisles (#9-20) carry the standard Dollar General merchandise

     Frozen Foods run along the right side wall, with dairy in the back in aisle 8. This would have been the middle of the grocery aisles in the space's Publix days, and the ceiling would have been raised higher in this area

     Another thing to note, the grocery department here is overpoweringly lime green. However, this lime green is quite tame compared to Harvey's Supermarket's and Fresco y Mas's blinding electric yellow interior decor! The interior decor you see here is actually the second iteration of the Dollar General Market decor, installed sometime in the early 2010's when Dollar General began to expand the concept beyond the prototype phase. The original Dollar General Market decor, which this store opened with, was covered rather comprehensively in this album by Random Retail if you're curious to see what that looked like.

     One of the grocery aisles, where you can see across the store into the general merchandise departments.

     Another grocery aisle. The grocery aisles here feel more like something from Save-A-Lot than a typical Dollar General food department. I think it has to do with those shelves.

     The meat department, located in the back right corner of the store. Dairy continues along the back wall.

     Heading over into the general merchandise part of the store now, here we are looking toward the registers. There are four aisles in the middle of the store that run from front to back, this being one of them. This one was the toy and seasonal merchandise aisle. Behind me toward the back of the store is where all the pet, cleaning, and paper products are kept. That area was full of employees stocking, so I didn’t take any pictures back there. 

     Looking down the left side of the store in this photo, from housewares in the back left toward health and beauty. Over here, it looks and feels more like a typical Dollar General. 

     The baby department got an extra wide aisle to allow for the racks of baby clothes to be placed in the middle of it. This store also has a full clothing department up in the front left corner of the store.  

     The Health and Beauty Department, which took up aisles 13 and 14. The grocery aisles are also visible in the background. As l_dawg2000 noted, "I guess all the lime green was to make sure the grocery department grabbed your attention. Mission Accomplished!" Dollar General sure picked the right color to grab people's attention with. You can even see the lime green clearly though the front windows from the parking lot!

     This photo was taken in the clothing department, which is located in the front left corner of the store (formerly the home of Publix's Bakery). Here we're looking back toward the main salesfloor. 

     Thank you for shopping Dollar General Market (in an old Publix), except that #5 light just had to get in the way of the sign!

Eckerd #??

245 Crockett Blvd, Merritt Island, FL - Merritt Crossings

     This Eckerd opened in 1983 with the rest of the Merritt Crossings shopping center, replacing an older store about a mile south on Courtenay Pkwy., also next to a former Publix (the one we saw at the very beginning of this post). This Eckerd relocated to a freestanding store on the other side of Crockett Blvd. in 1996 as an outparcel to the Merritt Island Target store. This location became a Goodwill after Eckerd left, although Goodwill moved to a new freestanding store on the other side of Courtenay Pkwy. around 2011/2012 or so. This space sat empty until early 2014, when the I Love My Island Thrift Store opened here. 

     Even though this photo was taken a year and a half after this thrift store held its grand opening, they still had their 'Now Open' sign set up out front!

     My only interior photo of the former Eckerd space showcases the old pharmacy area in the back left of the store. The pharmacy would have been located under the part of the ceiling that drops lower, prominently featured in this image. That space is currently the I Love My Island Thrift Store's electronics department. And in case you were wondering, that brown shaggy thing hanging on the rack in the foreground is a rug. At least I think it is, as it looks more like one of those nasty mats of seaweed that washes up on the beach! As Retail Retell put it, "Certainly doesn't look like a comfortable rug...!"

So from one Publix to another to an ugly rug, that's all I have for this post. Until the next time,

AFB