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| - Bluelight specials, cheap faux shiny jewelry, last years electronics, lay-away counters, camping gear, deli sandwiches and old pizza are no more. Dustin Hoffman, as Rainman, will have to go elsewhere to buy underwear now, as Kmart is now officially closed.
After months of markdowns and final clearance sales of everything on the shelves, including the fixtures, racks signs, displays and even restaurant equipment, the store has been reduced to just a handful of items and is essentially empty.
Now that the store is cleared of merchandise, the mammoth size of this building is only made greater by the shiny linoleum and buzzing fluorescent lights above. Remove a few of the vertical supports throughout and this place screams to be repurposed into a roller-skating rink, ice-skating rink, indoor go-kart course or laser tag maze . . . even a banquet hall.
However, as commerce becomes increasingly conducted online, big box stores such as this will only continue to be more numerous. I expect this location to be subdivided up into multiple smaller retail stores, as the location is still a fairly prime, and busy, spot in the East Valley to accommodate a mobile phone store, or even yet another pawnshop or instant loan retail store - because we can never have too many of those!
Alas, the best thing for this location would be a satellite Amazon distribution center - but that would be a pipe dream, as it would make too much sense being this close to the freeway, bring more jobs, commerce and taxes to Mesa.
However, I'm OK with this now defunct store becoming a call-center - because I truly do love telemarketers, email spammers and people selling me insurance policies, island timeshares and search engine optimization over the phone and in my inbox. -Just kidding.
OK, I digress . . . I will just have to say fair well to bluelight specials, chained together shoes, cheap greeting cards, flowered housecoats, jumbo tubs of cheese puffs and bundles of white tube socks because this is an end of an era . . . and I am a survivor.
Good bye K-Mart - it was good while it lasted.
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