Saw Tam’s post today about abandoned big-box stores, wherein she mentioned Sportsman’s Warehouse. Thought to myself, “heh, our Sportsman’s Warehouse went out of business in less than a year.” Browsed over to Ernunnos’ place and found a post linking to the same AP article hosted at a different site. Clicked the link, and the photo at the top of the article was… the shuttered local Sportsman’s Warehouse.
It was a nice store, but they opened in the worst possible place at the worst possible time and did, as best I could tell, ZERO advertising. I only stumbled upon the store when I happened to visit that mall for the Barnes & Noble, and you’re not going to keep a store that size in business with “only stumbled upon” traffic.
Empty BigBox stores aren’t all bad. My city bought a defunct WalMart and is in the process of turning it into a really BIG library!