Parkway Plaza Shopping Center: Kingsport, TN

One thing that wore on me when I was driving through Kingsport is how I wish that I was arriving in the late 1990's instead of when I did, because then I could have toured and photographed the forgotten Kingsport Mall.  Of course, back then I would have had only a 24 exposure big, bulky film camera with image quality resembling the early 80's.  What would also have been worth it in that trip aside from visiting Kingsport Mall was to have driven a short ways down the street to catch an earlier glimpse of Parkway Plaza Shopping Center.

The most amazing thing about Parkway Plaza is that it looks like the kind of strip mall you would find in the most depressed ghetto before the graffiti artists, arsonists and vandals trashed it beyond recognition.  It is that reason that you rarely find many places like this left in most cities across the country since places like this are modified or demolished in the nicer sides of town.  The large push to redevelop most urban slums influences this, but some of the best mid-to-late century architecture was lost due to that logic.  Kingsport, however, is one of those exceptional places hanging onto some of the retro architecture and signage left behind.  The strip mall looks to be a perfectly preserved specimen straight from the 1960's in every way!  Even the sign along Lynn Garden Drive (TN 36) looks like it hasn't been touched in decades, and it is in remarkably good condition.  I really do not understand why but these type of cities tend to hold the most mid-century gems with East Tennessee a virtual living museum of the mid-1950's to the mid-1970's, but I do wonder how much race is a factor since the immediate area despite being very economically depressed is also very white. 

The very first photo features the well-preserved modernist sign along Lynn Garden Drive (TN 36).  The first photo above features the former Kroger, which is currently abandoned.  Kroger looks to have left in the 1980's, but the store may have found a few tenants as late as the 90's considering it's not in worse condition.  The last photo above is the former discount store which resembles some pics of Hill's or Grant's.

Parkway Plaza Shopping Center in its time was an unremarkable shopping center featuring one grocery store, Kroger, and one discount store which appeared to be Hill's, Grant's or something similar.  I would not have been surprised if this wasn't the very first strip mall in the city that at the time ultimately supplemented Kingsport Mall as if it itself was a mall.  In fact, Parkway Plaza is itself has a small open-air, covered mall portion.  Such arcades were obviously common in the earliest strip centers to maximize space for shops that wanted into the first strip malls prior to the mall era.   The arcade, however, ends at a plain wall with obviously no anchor or expansion planned.  Imagine if it had, though, then Kingsport could have had its own version of Montgomery's Normandale Shopping Center.

I am looking here into the open-air mall portion in the middle looking toward the wall in the back.  Too bad that was never expanded into a full-fledged open-air mall.  The decay is interesting enough here, but the period design is something else.

Parkway Plaza is in an awkward location on TN 36 north of US 11W (East Stone Drive).  At one time TN 36 was the main route carrying US 23, but in the 1970's it was by-passed by the TN 137 freeway, which later became I-181 and is now the northern extent of I-26.  Even worse was when Kingsport Mall and later Fort Henry Malls were built, all the development shifted east towards the malls taking downtown as well.  Parkway Plaza became isolated and its local community eventually chose not to support it in lieu of shopping at the better, newer options further east.  Kroger eventually closed their location at Parkway Plaza consolidating all of their business into their store across from Kingsport Mall sometime later.  Soon everything else moved there as well with the momentum speeding up further after Kingsport Mall was torn down and redeveloped in 2002.

Obviously whoever parked that truck there in the front of the mall part in the first photo was not a bit worried about anything happening to it.  That is looking toward the parking lot and I took the picture to show the unique skylight treatment.  The last photo is a look down the walkways in front of the stores out toward the mystery discounter.  I edited out my vehicle in the second pic.

I can only imagine if the economy were better that Parkway Plaza would be history, probably redeveloped for a non-retail purpose such as a senior center, medical center, mid-priced motel or low income housing.  Probably the main reason it was overlooked was due to the lower commercial benefit of the area as well as the push to redevelop Kingsport Mall first.  While there may be one or two shops still operating in the center, it is effectively dead with little hope of revival.  With no renovation other than a paint job, updating the center would be a huge investment and any renovation would probably make the center look worse since it would likely be done cheaply.  The anchors are also too small to be revived in any form, so the most that would be interested in locating there would be a Dollar General.  I'm just glad I got to see it before they city finally decides that this interesting, yet decrepit historical landmark is too much of a blight to leave as is.

Abandoned Bruno's: East Montgomery, AL

Bruno's at the moment is completely on life support.  The company has been in shambles since the early 1990's and acquired many times.  All of this was due to a tragic plane crash over Rome, GA in 1990 which took out the upper level management of the company, mostly members of the Bruno family.  Unfortunately, the waning of Bruno's is all too evident across Montgomery.  Vacant Food World and Bruno's stores litter the city, even in the nicer areas.  It seems like Publix or Winn-Dixie would capitalize on this, but with the Bruno's stores so far behind in design and location much of these locations look straight out of the early 1980's in areas that likewise peaked in the 1980's.  The bad economy, which has also hit Alabama hard, is not helping either.

The location pictured here is one of the nicer stores.  Located at the northeast corner of Vaughn and Bell Roads, It looks very similar to a since repurposed location in Alpharetta, GA that closed sometime in the 90's.  The design here leads me to wonder if this might not have been an Ogletree's location since I had suspected that Alpharetta store was originally Ogletree's.  Perhaps Ogletree's also was in Alabama?  That might explain the 1987 acquisition if so.  While I cannot confirm that, it was nice to find this store with the logo still on the outside.  I wish I had done a little better job photographing more of the abandoned Food World/Bruno's locations, but I covered this one specifically because of its distinct 80's-style Charleston architecture that made me wonder if it was always a Bruno's. 

Pictured above is the whole front of the store and here is a close-up of the front entrance and logo.  In all reality, Bruno's does not sound like a store you would think would be from the South.  This is a very swanky looking store even today.

Looking inside the old Bruno's reveals a store that is pretty well trapped in the 1980's, but very nice for the time it opened.  Note the brick-like brown linoleum tiles in the front.

In all, Bruno's is one of the most significant tragedies of retail.  Once a giant in the Deep South along with Big "B" Drugs, this store serves as a reminder of what once was.  I have covered a couple other former Bruno's locations on this blog here and here. 

Westgate Shopping Center Revisited: Macon, GA

Westgate Shopping Center, also known as Westgate Mall [see older post], was redeveloped in 1994.  Sadly, it seems so many redevelopments of old malls in the 90's now call for another redevelopment.  In the case of Westgate, it is really in a bad spot.  The mall was ailing for years when it was finally torn down, and initially the redevelopment was wildly successful.  The only original anchor to carry over from the original mall was Burlington Coat Factory, but the new strip shopping center brought with it Home Depot and Media Play, both winners in that time period.  Wal-Mart had been added previously, which came itself in the 1980's and did not appear to connect to the mall itself.  The redeveloped center, which replaced the oldest enclosed mall in Georgia, did well for a decade but then seemed to finally fail due to a myriad of problems.

The original mall itself was not very big.  Aside from the fact it never actually had a department store anchor, the number of shops numbered only 30.  It was this compact design which probably led to the many attempts to re-tenant the center into something that Macon Mall did not have.  These days it would have been a perfect center for medical, professional or county offices, but the owners apparently instead preferred the higher dollar option of razing the mall for a traditional strip mall.  It did indeed work for awhile, but looking at where it is today, was this really the best idea?

When Westgate opened, I-75 was not completed and Eisenhower was not yet built, but it was close to downtown.  You think it would have taken advantage of the location.  The first photo shows a drawing of what the inside of the mall looked like.  Early enclosed malls instead of advertising the stores were advertising climate control!  If only today's lifestyle center builders would take a little tiny hint that this isn't California.

A listing of all the original tenants in the mall.  Note the lack of department stores.  No department store ever came to the mall, though Wal-Mart served as a pseudo-anchor in the later years.

Aside from Westgate, the only other mall I have known not to have a department store was Innsbruck in Asheville.  What the mall did have originally, however, was two grocery stores, two five and dime stores, a drug store and an auto parts store.  It was a novelty indeed, but definitely not an all-in-one shopping extravaganza.  Grocery shoppers could choose Big Apple (precursor to Food Giant and later Cub Foods) or Colonial.  Those looking for five and dime could choose between Woolworth's or Newberry's.  The Auto Parts store appeared to be a local affair, and it eventually became Otasco.  After a day of shopping, shoppers could dine at G&M Cafeteria and then get desert at Hefner's Bakery or Betty Ann's Candies.  While real shopping remained downtown at that point, it is undeniable that this was a period when malls were fun and had something for everyone.  Why did that ever have to change?

This is a corrected Westgate Mall map showing a 1993 aerial, but detailing all of the previous stores operating in the mall as well as modifications.  The first name on all the stores listed is the original tenant when the mall first opened.

The problem with redeveloping a dead mall with more retail is that the luster tends to fade quickly.  I can think of no older shopping mall that was redeveloped into a strip mall that turned out to be successful long term.  Part of that is that the owners did not take into account that the surrounding area would eventually pull it down.  This was what was there when the strip was first redeveloped in 1994.  Small shops were placed between Burlington and Wal-Mart.

The factors that killed Westgate could be summarized as crime, bankruptcy of one of its major tenants and a new shopping center down the road.  Obviously, the center would have successfully redeveloped if the neighborhood was prime for new retail.  However, nobody was interested in moving in the dying strip whose cheap stucco remodel looked hopelessly dated by 2005 and its core of shoppers shifting elsewhere.  Second, the bankruptcy of the Media Play chain was obviously a difficult void to fill along with Wal-Mart, which left the center by the middle of the last decade.  Third, Home Depot was lured away to a huge strip further west on the opposite side of Macon Mall.  The end result of this is that the once thriving strip mall is now largely empty making it twice dead much like what happened with Roswell Mall near Atlanta.

This scene looks like the apocalyse (or post-dollar crash) showing a virtually empty strip mall with major chain stores.  If not for Burlington Coat Factory there would be no car in sight.

Media Play was one of my very favorite stores in the 90's, but its all-in-one concept fell apart after the 90's as its competition became more numerous and stronger against the chain.  This is one of the few with the sign still up.  Note the light inside, though...this is a really big surprise coming in the next two pics.

Aside from the light, this damage to the building shows something severe happened.  Apparently a tornado made a direct hit on this building in 2008, which was the same one that hit Macon Mall.

...and severe it was!  The tornado apparently tore off part of the roof leaving a sizable portion of the abandoned store completely open to the elements. 

After nearly 50 years, it apparently is finally too late for Westgate.  This sign looks to predate the demolition of the enclosed mall.

It is unfortunate that the original mall did not find new use, but I wonder if it would have been thriving today re-purposed if they had not torn it down to start with.  It seems Houston Mall is doing better as a spliced up mess of medical, government and professional services than Westgate did as a strip, so maybe the owners of Houston Mall were pretty savvy not giving into the de-malling craze of the past 15 years.  Since this mall is years too late for that, I am guessing Burlington Coat Factory will probably end up at Macon Mall eventually.  Perhaps they should just tear down what is left and let it go back to nature.  It is derelict overall as it is, and it is also a victim of its own age combined with years of poor planning.  Westgate could have succeeded had it been built larger and had department stores, but the circumstances just did not work either time.

Ingles at Innsbruck Mall

While not the first Ingles, the Ingles at Innsbruck Mall is one of the very first of the stores in the chain featuring elements now rarely found in modern Ingles stores.  It dates to an era when supermarkets as a whole were much smaller with more limited selections, vibrant colors and ease of convenience compared to todays much larger stores that are close in size to the 1980's Wal-Mart stores that they so often replaced.  Ingles these days has quite a huge market and completely dominates grocery retailing in Asheville. This is why a few classic treasures have been allowed to remain, and this one was nothing short of a gem.

This photo I took in late 2005.  The store looked in remarkably good repair at that point.  The mall attached to it had an exterior renovation around that time as well.

Ingles states that their very first store opened in Asheville in 1963, which according to a poster "Ken" in my previous blog actually opened in Biltmore Village.  I am placing the opening of Innsbruck Mall about 1965, so this seems about right to me. Looking at the store inside and out, this leads me to wonder if this store was ever renovated once at any time in its history. While their design was never really updated much for 20 years after it first opened, this one was distinct in how incredibly tiny it was. I've seen a few other mini-Ingles left in operation, including one in Franklin, but this one had all the retro goodies inside and out.

Yes, it's cramped, but it looks so cozy and tacky and old fashioned like they looked when I was a child.  I really miss that.

 

You can tell its old when frozen foods are found on a side wall instead of the center of the store.  I kind of like that actually.

No special pattern or design here.  Just plain font and colors mark the Green Grocer and Wine Cellar.  I have not seen anything like this on the newer stores.  I don't even remember it in the later "disco" stores.  You can see these areas better on my photos of the store closed, but without all the lights and charm.

It was sad to see this store go. When I photographed it, the new free-standing store next door was nearing completion. That is why I took these photos. Unfortunately, my camera back then was not as good and I found it difficult to discretely photograph much of the store. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy seeing these pics of one of the last operational classic-era supermarkets.

Here is a look down a random center aisle towards the check out area.  Those overhead signs are very, very old.  In the stores built like in the mid-80's, they never updated those unless the store was rebuilt and expanded.

Lost Vintage Sky City: Morristown, TN

Very interesting video here: vintage Ingles and Sky City.  This was a much older style of Sky City than what I was familiar with, which had a much more modern logo.  This store looks to have been one of the 60's or ealry 70's models.  A similar Ingles/Sky City arrangement was common in Georgia and North Carolina, but it also existed in Tennessee.  Check out some of the other videos from the author of the Rose's during demolition in Morristown.  The creator of this video is also the photographer of the lone photo currently available online of a Sky City store.

Del Taco

Del Taco is a staple in the southwest, and more than once attempted to gain the
national exposure of Taco Bell. Unfortunately, this did not seem to work out so well for the company, which has retracted completely to its core market with a few exceptions. Today, the only Del Taco remaining in Georgia is on St. Simons Island, which as of recent still looks exactly the same as its initial entry into Georgia.


Del Taco's grand entry into Georgia came in 1980 where it opened many, many locations across the state. While it was initially quite successful, its fortunes began to wane across the state by the end of the 1980's. In 1992, after only 12 years, every single Del Taco closed with exception to St Simons, meaning lots of vacant restaurants and an end to an era where Georgians were offered an alternative to Taco Bell for fast-food Mexican.


Alas! Del Taco wasn't through with the Peach State yet! In 1995, it came back but this time with a different logo and all new locations. The new locations were almost all joint locations with Mrs. Winner's, which to those not from Georgia is a local chicken restaurant. The only free-standing one to knowledge was in the Food Court at North Point Mall, which actually may have been there longer. Unfortunately, this new concept of two in one lasted even less long than the previous, and the locations all fell into poor management by the end of the decade. By late 2001, Del Taco was removed from all the Mrs. Winner's restaurants that it shared, now all just Mrs. Winner's.


Today, unless you're visiting St. Simons Island, Del Taco is not on the menu in Georgia. Nevertheless, a few of its scars remain including this notable one in the photos here in Cedartown, GA. Until recently, this location looked like it had just closed despite being closed over a decade. In fact, the sign continued to read "Closed. Thanks For 12 Great Years" with absolutely no vandalism or missing letters for at least a decade. Most of the others have been converted to other uses or demolished.