Flickr Photos 48
Wawa opened here on the site of a former Petco. I'm not quite sure what Petco started out as; the building dated back at least to the 50's and I don't think they would have been an original tenant. It moved down the road in 2011 (and unfortunately closed earlier this year). The old building was demolished in 2012, with Wawa opening on the site the following year. This location attracted some attention in 2016 when Trump stopped here for Tastykakes after a conference at a nearby hotel.
Since I heard the news about this place remodeling a few months after Giant's plan was announced, I decided I should check it out. Almost four months should be enough time to start the remodel, right?
Well they must have been thinking the same thing. It looks like the remodel here just started, and the way things are shaping up, they weren't joking when they said it was major.
Starting with the outside, there have been a couple small changes so far. Primarily, the window in the left entrance tower has been taken out. Carts have been moved outside of the right one so they can start on the right side.
The weird light patterns on the wall are from the new LED lightbulbs that were retrofitted into the existing lights.
I'm curious to see what the end result of this is, maybe they'll redo the facade? It probably wouldn't be hard to stick up their gray tiles on top of the existing stucco.
They're working on something in front of the store. I think this was originally a bank, which was closed and walled off for a few years. I know they've been putting Starbucks in closed banks in other Giants, but this one just got a Starbucks earlier this year somewhere else, which I doubt they're going to move. Maybe they're reinstalling the bank?
No clue what's going on here, but I'll be keeping tabs on this store.
I'm not going to visit this as frequently as I did the Westtown or Exton stores, but I'll try to make it here at least monthly. Update: Starbucks was already relocated from its original location, and is now located here.
Another thing I noticed was that the organic aisles had their fixtures replaced, and the aisles split in two. Maybe this was done as part of a previous refresh before the remodel, since they are starting to remove these sections and spread organic throughout the rest of the store, turning this area into the beer garden. With the amount of remodeling this place is supposed to get, A beer department has to be part of it.
Of course, it's also a possibility the aisles were split so half could be removed for beer garden seating.
No matter what they do to this area specifically, I'm pretty sure that hanging trim thing is going to come down.
Looking at where the window formerly was. The little bit of wall below it was also taken out. Surprisingly, the vestibule is still open.
The lights in here were replaced with LED fixtures, too. I'm not sure if that was part of the remodel, or just a previous refresh. They've been gradually putting these in all their stores (not replacing all of the lights, just the ones in a drop ceiling grid like this).
My guess is that they're going to move the doors to the front of the vestibule, as opposed to the sides where they are now. Update: This was done so they could expand the store under the awning to accommodate a new beer department.
The new logo does fit in better from the hanging sign under the awning.
I thought it was interesting what they did with the logo here, it's like a cross between the old and new ones.
I have a feeling they tried to upgrade the logo, but didn't want to spend anything on a new sign frame.
After a large number of Ruby Tuesdays were closed in 2016, the Philadelphia area was only left with 9 locations, this being one of them.
Even though their current store design is my favorite, this style falls to a close second. I think this location might have been among the last to be built before they switched styles (This look was replaced by a design that didn't make it to many locations; I think all the ones it went to have since been remodeled).
Lots of apples on these trees. It almost looks sorta surreal.
Hess's was an Allentown-based department store which had a decent presence throughout the state in the 70's and 80's (they had stores going as far south as Tennessee at one point). They started to sell off their stores in the 90's. Bon-Ton bough the last of them in 1995. (My last Flickr profile pic is a former Hess's-turned-Bon-Ton).
I didn't know what Tiparillo was when I got this picture, I just knew it looked like an ancient box. I looked into it; they are a brand of cigars that came out in 1961. This box doesn't look too much newer than that. Apparently Tiparillo is still being made, but with a new logo and by a different company.
This planned STS tire location was still under construction when the merger with Mavis went through. Mavis finished the building in their design, which was similar to STS' to start with. As a result, it looks somewhat like a cross between a new-build Mavis store and an STS they picked up. There seems to be at least two other stores like this.
Typing out these descriptions doesn't feel right. Since the buildings in today's set are all part of the same center, they opened at the same time. I feel like every description so far has started with "___ opened in the mid-2000's..."
Well, I'll let you guys guess when this one was built. Hint: it's not a trick question. :P
(If we want to get specific, 2008. This opened a little while after the rest of the center, but in the same general time frame.)
Arby's opened the same time as the rest of these stores. Just like Sonic, they have a presence in the area, but none of them are really close or convenient for me to get to. As a result, I have to admit that I've never actually had Arby's. Update: I've now had Arby's once.
They say they have the meats, and I am a meat enthusiast, so I feel like I would enjoy it.
Susquehanna Bank built this location in the 2000's, and sold to BB&T in 2015. When they bought out National Penn a few months later, they closed their location down the road and consolidated to this one. I'm not sure how they decided which one to keep. In Lionville, they chose the National Penn even though they had already set up shop in the former Susquehanna.
Dunkin built this location in the mid-2000's, and remodeled it to the look seen here in 2016.
Seen just beyond this is one of the few Sonics in the area (and possibly even the closest to my house- but we usually go to the Lancaster location instead)
You don't see these on the road too often. I think they're only used by the people at corporate (who I guess send out their own maintenance people?) I'm not sure why else they would use vans or have so many of them. The parking lot at the former Franklin Mint; which Wawa has turned into their annex while they expand their main headquarters, is full of these for some reason. Another pressing question is do they drive these all the way down to Florida too?
It's a mystery.
Target opened this store in the mid/late 90's. It was given a semi-remodel in 2017, but it still largely contains the mid-2000's decor. The clothing area's walls were painted gray and a ton of spotlights were added, but the rest of the store (and even the hanging signs in the area they did redo) are still 2000's. Update: Given a full remodel Summer 2018.
McDonald's, Lawrenceville, NJ
This opened alongside Wawa in 2014. The area in front looks a little too narrow to hold a playplace, but I don't know why else this store would have windows up top like that.
Wawa, Lawrenceville, NJ
Wawa built this location in 2014 on the site of a long-abandoned stainless steel diner.
This canopy design is a first for me, but I like it! It sorta reminds me of the old mushroom-canopy Mobil stations, which is what I'm guessing it started as.
Update: Looks like it was always a Shell, and was built in the 80's.
From driving by, this place didn't look too bad. It has a cute name and some quaint cottage-y buildings. Then I read the reviews.
This might have the most horrifying reviews of any place I've looked up. There were only two five-star reviews (out of 57 total)- one was meant for the car dealership across the street, and another by a guy who found a bag of weed in his room (that alone should tell you where this is going). The rest were all complaints about the smell, bedbugs, broken fixtures, stained walls and carpet, and how their room hadn't been cleaned.
They don't have prices listed, but I can tell you it better be cheap.
This mall was built in 1975 by Kravco (which has now evolved into Simon), and featured Bamberger's, Woolworth, Hahne's, JCPenney, and Sears. n the 80's, Bamberger's became Macy's, and Hahne's was replaced by Lord & Taylor. Woolworth closed with the chain in the late 90's, and was replaced with the mall's food court. Sears is still at the mall, but not for long. It is set to close for good September 2nd, leaving JCPenney the lone surviving original anchor.
The mall is currently sitting on plans to expand by up to 60% and adding Nieman Marcus and Nordstrom as anchors. The plans were approved in 2010. Even though it won't be happening anytime soon, Simon still has the intention of following through.
The mall's exterior was redone in 2012, but skipped over the department stores. As a result, this looks a little out-of-place here.
This building was just wrapping up a major remodel. I really liked the way they were able to blend the new with the old here.
Don't worry, they didn't sacrifice anything too historic to do this. I'm pretty sue this building only dates back to the 20's.
So now I'm thinking it was named after the company (or still the guy, but at least paid for by the company)
I believe this is some sort of staff building. It started out as a private residence (I wanna say for the university's president; they told us on the tour but I forget). In the late 50's, they had this addition put on, housing the faculty dining center. I love the architecture on this, too.
On the tour, they told us a famous architect did the addition. I forgot who it was (keep in mind, this is coming close to two years ago), but I wanna say maybe Louis Kahn. It's in his area, and he seems to have done a lot of work for universities.
It's not a great picture, but it's of some great architecture!
I love the windows and columns in this place. The vintage sign is a nice touch, too.
This building looks like it dates back to the mid-1800's. Unfortunately, (according to a notice posted in front) the structure was failing and the building was deemed unfit for occupancy. It was fenced off, and looked like demolition was beginning. I believe this area is listed as a Historic District, so they had to model the replacement building off of this one. I'm imagining the new one will serve the same purpose as this one, with retail on he bottom and offices above.
Up until recently, this space was home to a house paint and wallpaper store. From the looks of it, it had been here a while.
This is now an upscale independent pharmacy.
The first floor of this building is shared between two different banks. It must be pretty tense when employees pass each other in the hallway.
This building looks old enough that the Wells Fargo may have been a PNB (the bank, not the rapper [no, even though he's from Philly he's not named after the bank]) originally. Of course, one of PNB's successors could have also have moved into an existing space.
This appeared to be one of the older buildings in town. Originally a house, it was turned into offices more recently. The higher wall on the left may have been the roofline for another (now demolished, obviously) building.
This building doesn't look too old, so I'm going to assume it was built as a Sovereign Bank. It became Santander in 2013.
Santander recently came out with a new logo. As far as I'm aware, it hasn't made it to any of their area locations yet. The only difference is the font.
Sometimes I take pictures of places just because of their weird names. Normally, those don't make it to Flickr, but I figured the scene was interesting enough here I might as well post it.
You're welcome I guess.
1996 Election Relic, Princeton, NJ
Somehow this Bob Dole sticker was still holding on here, 20 years after the election. Its held up surprisingly well for its age. The sticker above it either didn't hold up nearly as well, or must be much older.
Maybe it's about time Princeton replaces their stoplight posts. These ones have clearly been here long enough.
Looking back towards the pharmacist. To give you an idea how small this store was, all three of these photos were taken from the same spot.
This building used to be a distribution center for Entemann's pastries, with an outlet in the front of the building. The distribution center closed in 2016, and the outlet was moved to Exton. Wawa is currently planning on building a store on the site, in addition to an unnamed retailer and a Pharmacy (presumably CVS, they have a tendency to open up adjacent to Wawa's).
This bank building's been vacant as long as I can remember. Judging by the architecture, I think it may have been built as a PSFS. It may have made it to the Mellon Bank days, but I'm positive this was closed by the time Citizens Bank bought them. It hasn't had a full-time tenant since then, although it was used as a contractor's office for a little while. Because the building was starting to fall into serious disrepair, the owner gutted it out and pulled down the drive-through canopy to try attract a new tenant. They were almost successful-A daycare filed permits to fix up this place in 2016, but decided a place down the street would be better.
This area is a little weird. There's an abandoned farm on one side of this place, and a vacant lot that once housed a factory on the other. All three sites have been empty since the 90's, even though the surrounding area has been built up considerably in recent years (although there are plans to develop the adjacent farms on either side before too long).
I've shopped at this store semi-regularly ever since Clemens opened here in 2003. Granted, for most of that time I wasn't really paying attention to the store. I had completely forgotten that this store had a pharmacy back when Clemens had it! I must not come down this aisle often, because I wasn't aware this former pharmacy alcove was even here. It's now being used for the store's organics department, which Giant moved here when they closed the pharmacy.
Wow, that's a lot of parentheticals.
The produce scale in the foreground probably dates back to Clemens.
It always struck me as strange how Clemens had the meats department separated so far from the deli, but now that I think about it, they really aren't nearby in any of the stores around here.
This store is also one of the increasingly few Giants to still have fluorescent lights in the drop ceilings. I think Giant gave up on the full-store LED lighting upgrades in 2016, switching to a quicker and presumably easier upgrade where they only switch out the rectangular lights held in the drop ceiling. The new ones are the same size, so they can be swapped out without much work, unlike the ceiling lights, where they'd have to completely remove the old stuff and basically start from scratch.
At this point, this and a couple former Genuardis' are the only ones in my area that haven't had this done. Update: This had the LED troffers as of late 2018.
Even though Verizon has made this space their own, the ceiling is a dead giveaway that it used to be part of the Shop N Bag.
Looking towards the checkouts. I've always loved the Clemens checkout lights. They look a lot classier than Giant's usual 3-sided plastic tower.
One thing I've always liked about this store are the windows in front. In the daytime, they alone can light up half the store. Without them, this store would look like a parking garage (really- where else do you see concrete truss ceilings?). I also thought the square shades on the lights here were unique. I've never seen them anywhere else, which makes me think they may date back to when this store was first built as a Shop N Bag.
This store was built shortly after the adjacent CVS opened in 2009. What's funny is that in almost a decade, their exterior design is exactly the same. The new Lionville one looks almost exactly like this!
This store's got less room to look around than a Pep Boys or AutoZone, but if you know what you're looking for, the employees will be able to drag it out of the back for you.
It's more convenient that way, but I prefer wandering the aisles.
I know I posted a picture of this place last week, but between Royal not being around anymore and this being a cool evening shot, I decided to put it up.
Just judging by age and location of this building, it was probably a very local bank that first built it. It was also probably swallowed up by another couple banks before becoming CoreStates/First Union/Wachovia/Wells Fargo.
Bank mergers are an interesting pyramid.
Looking towards the coffee stand. It might just be the picture, but the wood grain here looks different than it does at other stores.
They were replacing the wood shingle roof on the walkway connecting the two buildings. Nothing too exciting, but I liked the pictures I got of it.
This church was first established in the 1700's, although the current building wasn't built until the 1830's and expanded in the 1860's. The area with the gray roof was added on in the 50's. The church consolidated with a newer one in Lionville (which is currently building a larger space for itself) in around 2011. This building sat mothballed for a couple years before being bought by a local farmer. He's planning on turning this into a community center and headquarters for a large obstacle course he's building on his farm. In the meantime (the course has been under construction for years. It just keeps growing), he's renting out the space to another congregation.
This neighborhood is just weird.
This picture comes from the night I almost got kicked out of the Exton Target.
You probably want the full story.
Senior year, our grade started a game of assassin. The goal of the game was to squirt somebody you were randomly assigned to with water, and not get squirted yourself. The rules were you couldn't get somebody at school, church, any Applebee's property (apparently there's a story behind that), or their place of work.
The guy I was assigned to worked here in the Starbucks, so I came around closing time and waited outside. I learned a couple things that night: Even if the Starbucks closes at 9, the employees have to spend another hour there cleaning up for the day; employees have their own entrance in this store (my guy got away because of that, but I caught him later at the gym); and other Target employees will try to chase you down when they see you run after somebody in the parking lot with a squirt gun after standing outside the door for an hour.
Two years after they first said they were coming here, work is finally underway! Apparently, the township gave them a lot of trouble about opening up here. It took two years from the time they decided to take the space to finally get it approved.
TSC is taking the left side of the store. The other half, holding SuperFresh's entrance, is still available.
They took out the original bathrooms out front, and gutted out the back rooms, and appear to be opening the space up to the sales floor. They are also putting an outdoor storage area in the parking lot, which apparently was one of the township's main concerns about letting them open here.
Despite the amount the amount of work they're doing around the building, it looks like the main sales floor will stay largely the same (hopefully they'll remove the Redner's signage, at least!). TSC did some work on the ceiling grid and put LED bulbs in the Redner's fixtures, so those will presumably be staying put.
Flickr keeps deleting my description here. After typing it out twice, here's the highlights:
-built in 90's
-currently being remodeled
-That's good; I don't like old design
-See Google (link in comments) for before/after remodel pictures.
-The Russian travel site pictures in the link are from the 90's.
Update: I separated the link from the description, now it works. :P
Link
Outback opened this location in 2000. I want to say it is getting remodeled alongside the adjacent Hampton Inn, but can't say for certain. The inside is still pretty modern; I think it's their second most recent décor.
The Ship Inn is one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in the area, having opened in 1796. Their website gives pretty good history of the place. Lancaster Turnpike later became Lancaster Ave, and still runs in front of the building. It's actually the road I walked down that time I tried walking home from Philly.
By the way, if you've got a couple million dollars lying around, you could buy this.
Arco built this station in the 70's, although they've owned the property since the 30's. This was built (or, given the age, rebuilt) on excess land at their pipeline terminal. This was purchased in the 80's by Sunoco, who closed the station in the mid-2000's. They still operate the terminal behind it.
Given the short distance between the tanks and station, I wouldn't be surprised if they piped gas straight to here. It was probably one of the cheaper stations, as a result.
One of the Exton Mall's outdoor "fence" directories. This one had a few different issues (for lack of a better word) with it. Even though Whole Foods was still over a year from opening, they still put their name up. I guess they just didn't want a blank space where Kmart's used to be. When they put up their name, the rest of the sign was repainted. They screwed up Sears' name with the repaint, adding an unnecessary apostrophe. This was later fixed, but left the sign a little messed up.
The third thing I thought was weird was how Macy's customers are told to go right. Since Macy's is in the middle of the mall, all entrances should be the same distance from it. In fact if I were coming from this direction, I would probably use the mall entrance right behind this.
I know we're almost two years behind on photos here (and skipping a day of posting isn't going to help; I'll try to post twice today if time permits), but bear with me. I'm still trying to think of a way to catch up.
Round 1 at the Exton Mall was only a few weeks away from opening in the first floor of the old JCPenney. The second floor remains vacant, although I have suspicions something may be in the works.
According to a PREIT press release from earlier this month, all of the anchor vacancies in their portfolio have been filled. While they haven't said anything about Exton specifically (normally they're pretty good about announcing major tenants), I'm pretty sure they still have to count half a JCPenney as an anchor.
TL;DR, I think somebody must have signed a lease recently.
This building was built in the 1800's as a dairy farm outbuilding. In 1931, it was converted to a restaurant called the Guernsey Cow. It became a local landmark due to a gigantic cow sign they had out by the road. In 1976, it was sold to Horn & Hardart, which continued to operate the restaurant until they folded. I'm not quite sure what happened to the building in the years in between, but it was taken over by the mall in the late 90's, and turned into a DNB branch.
There's a good website run by family of the restaurant's former owners, which has a lot of the place's history on it.
The produce lights in the (now rebuilt) Westtown Giant were a holdover the store had from the SuperFresh days. These lights were something that wound up in practically every A&P store from the 70's up through the 2000's. Even though Clemens opened in here relatively recently (2003 I think), the store was incredibly dated as a result of Clemens doing the bare minimum to remodel this store. Before it was torn down, I even found an old SuperFresh circular and a few of their store cards hanging around.
This Taco Bell, which opened around 2007, has been sitting like this since 2016. It looked like it could open up at any time, but has just been sitting in a mothballed state. In mid-2017, they finally emptied out all the appliances, but left the sign up. The mall neither lists this space as open nor available, so I don't know what's going on here.
I don't remember what this was originally, and only the first floor directory of the mall loads on Wayback, so we're out of luck here. As long as I've been paying attention to this sort of stuff, it's just been pop-up tenants.
From the little information I can find, there is a chance this was Body Central, but I'm pretty sure that's where Joseph A. Bank is now. Update: Looks like this was Body Central. Bank's was previously Borders Express.
As I mentioned previously, this is now filled with poinsettias. They look neat in their own regard, and it's nice they have some living plants in the mall, but I think I'd rather have the fountain.
The red and green lights were for Christmas decorations. Turned out to be the last time for these, as this were turned into a planter about a year later.
Of all the Strawbridge's stores that Macy's bought, only three are still open: this one, Wilmington DE, and Northeast Philly. Even if Exton has the highest vacancy rate of PREIT's malls (17%, which isn't too bad in the scheme of things), this has to count for something.
The inset picture shows this area pre-expansion. Even though they added a second floor to the mall, this atrium didn't change all that much. They carved out a second floor entrance and added a new walkway. The fountain has also shrunk significantly. In fact, since this picture was taken, they turned off the fountain and filled it with poinsettias. I think that was originally just going to be for the 2017 Christmas season, but they liked them enough they kept them around.
I love how dramatic that carpeting looks.
One of the rooms in back has been curtained off. It doesn't look like the space is being used for anything currently. I'm hoping they add a store-within-a-store here at some point. For a store like this to avoid the 2017 closures, I think it is probably doing pretty well.
White House Black Market. This store's sketchy name has caused plenty of "this is how they're going to pay off the national debt" jokes. They're a clothing store targeted towards middle-aged women, and are owned by Chico's, which has a store of their own in the mall.
From what I could find, this opened in 2012, making it one of the mall's newer traditional tenants (traditional meaning not entertainment or food oriented, like most of the mall's recent additions). Chico's opened the same time.
The produce reconfiguration also got rid of Clemens' "Mother Nature's Garden" signage, although it retained the field and sun behind it.
Mismatched flooring from when they reconfigured the produce section. They did a good job making it look like part of a pattern, though.
This store gets a surprising amount of investment considering it's one of only three Giant stores without Giant's décor.
Looking out to the rest of the store from under the lattice. I think those signs hanging from the refrigerated cases were handmade, which I think is a neat touch.
By the way, I was able to find out a little more about the Peapod distribution center in the space next door. Apparently, the service is growing fast enough they needed to open up an extra center. I think this is supposed to serve the Philadelphia area, while the main Carlisle distribution center will do Peapod for central PA and Martin's. I'm assuming this is a temporary setup until they can get an actual distribution center built, at which point I imagine they will expand this store into the current annex.
We're kinda going through this stour backwards today, starting with a view looking towards the checkouts.
In 2014, Giant started going around and upgrading the ductwork in their open-ceiling stores. They would replace the metal tubes with large cloth ones that were supposed to be more energy-efficient. I just notice that this store, nor any of the ones Giant bought of other chains, got that treatment. I wonder if the different systems other stores used aren't compatible with the ones Giant uses.
I'm not sure how that took me this long to notice; that green duct really stands out on the ceiling.
I can see why they would leave some of the shelving and other store fixtures in here, but the computers? Seriously? Even if they don't need them anymore, I think that would be a little too valuable to leave behind.
Verizon opened this store in 2003. They relocated to a freestanding building in 2016. Even after moving out, they never emptied out this space.
Last I checked, somebody else had moved in here. I wanna say it was Monkey Fish Toys, but don't remember for certain.
I saw somebody had set up a table in the former Stadium Grille space. It had been closed and gutted out since 2011, so I was positive this wasn't here before. The space sat vacant another two years after this before being turned into a microbrewery this year.
I have no idea what this chair is for, and I'm uncomfortable with the idea that somebody would just come in here to sit.
This building is starting to come together nicely. It looks fantastic now that it's finished, but at the rate I'm posting photos, it will be a while before y'all get to see it.
It's this kind of suspense that keeps bringing you back to me.
This was built in the mid-1800's, and served students for over 90 years. It finally closed in 1964, after Pickering Valley Elementary was built next door (PV was rebuilt in 2007. I liked the old one better). After the school moved, the building was expanded and turned into the township building.
These buildings are in surprisingly good condition given the amount of time they've been abandoned.
The landscaping done by the corporate center really makes a difference.
This is set back a little ways into the woods, which I think must have been a field when this was active. It used to be more recognizable, but the paddles on top have fallen apart in recent years.
This one appears to have originally been used to pump water out of the ground. There's a little concrete room underground here with a bunch of pipes in it. My best guess is this dates back to the 20's.
Around back, some of the windows are busted out.
I'm guessing whoever did that wasn't aware of the boards behind it.
There's about a dozen or so houses just like this, set back from the road a little bit. I was always curious what these were. After a few years of keeping my eyes out, I think I have it figured out. There's a private school nearby that taught agriculture, who historically owned much more land than they do today. These buildings sat along the edge of the property, and served as faculty housing.
In the 90's, the school sold off their farmland after dropping the agricultural program (and changing their name from Church Farm School to School at Church Farm). The land these houses sit on was sold to a developer who planned on building a corporate center. Over the years, the corporate center has built a few buildings, but still remains largely undeveloped, sparing these houses for now.
I think the developers rented these houses out in the interim, but abandoned them after they started to fall into disrepair. No point in fixing a building if you're just going to knock it down anyway.
I was thinking there would be stuff to see through the windows. It looks like they're uncovered, right?
Wrong. They're actually boarded up from the inside. They painted the plywood black to give the illusion of there being nothing there. It tricked me at least!
This was one of relatively few branches in the area built as a TD Bank, prior to them buying out Commerce Bank. It was much smaller and older than the Commerce down the road, so this was closed in its favor. After sitting vacant for nearly a decade, GreenDrop set up a donation center here.
I'm not sure I'd call what they're doing to this place an upgrade... It lasted almost 100 years as it was, so why change it?
ACME built this store in the late 90's, shortly before getting bought out by Albertsons. This replaced a 50's store in the shopping center. This was given a major remodel around 2009, and again in 2016.
Since my last visit here, this store began a remodel. Even though they replaced the old compact-fluorescent lights with much brighter fluorescent tubes, this store is still impossible to take decent photos of.
I think I have newer, better photos of this place around somewhere. You'll see them when I get to them.
The former organics aisle has been replaced with a wine and beer department, with the former A La Carte at the end repurposed as a full-service bar.
I've actually seen ladies leave their husbands here while they shop. I guess it's like a kids corner for adults.
This is the older one of two Turkey Hills in Honey Brook. The other one I covered in 2015.
This one is a bit narrower than the other.
I normally try to avoid posting pictures of people's houses, but this one was cool enough I couldn't help it (Homeowners: if you're reading this, I'm sorry). I'm pretty sure the log part of the house is older, and the stone part was an addition. This probably dates back to the late 1700's or early 1800's, judging by the building's shape.
DNB opened here in the 90's. It sits at a poorly marked 5-point intersection, so I've used this as a landmark to get back to after making a wrong turn on more than one occasion.
This opened in 1966, and advertises being the first in Chester County with a growler system. I'm assuming this is their original building, which, when it was built, would have really been out in the middle of nowhere. Even now, it's still on the fringe of Downingtown.
This was built in the early 60's as one of the now rare wooden A-frame ACME's. ACME probably closed in the late 70's. It later became Gary's Pharmacy, which Drug Emporium bought in the 90's. It closed with the chain in 2003. I think Drug Emporium was the one who put on the current façade.
It was later home to Sly Fox brewery, which moved to a larger facility in Pottstown more recently. The space is now divided between Dollar General and Lucky Lab Tavern.
McDonald's rebuilt this location in the early 2000's. It has a tower on the back that looks like its supposed to hold the golden arches. That seems like a bad place for it. Wouldn't it be better in front so people could, ya know, see the sign before they were already in the parking lot?
Update: This was remodeled sometime in early 2018.
I always thought this was a "classic" DQ location. Turns out, I was very wrong. Dairy Queen moved here from the shopping center behind it in 2010. This building was originally a bank, and previously housed a real estate agency.
Near the southeast corner of the property, there was a set of four large buildings. Three were abandoned, one was being used by the National Guard. When I saw the construction going on, I got excited they were going to fix up these buildings. They were sure under construction.... just not the good kind. One (formerly Buchanan Hall) had been demolished previously. By the time I got back to check on the progress, another had been taken down, and the one pictured (Keystone Hall) had the front torn off of it. Now, only the one used by the National Guard stands.
While I'm not totally happy with the outcome, at least they saved and restored one of them. :/
Keystone had glass towers on either side of it, which I thought was a neat touch.
These four buildings were built in 1930 for the female patients.
Capitol Hall, another now-demolished building that wasn't in too bad a shape. At least they had a use for the site of this one. The National Guard built a fenced-in armory on the site.
I still would have much rather seen them fix this one up.
The ducts have been covered over. I'm guessing that has something to do with cleaning out the asbestos.
That light doesn't look all that old, and the fact they salvaged the ballast from it means it must have still worked, too. I wonder if this building was still in use more recently than the others.
The back of Keystone hall. Considering how these buildings had been abandoned for close to 30 years, they held up remarkably well. It's a shame they were taken down.
I hope the National Guard at least has a use planned for the site of this one. It's currently just a grass field.
Double upload today, since Flickr crashed as I was posting yesterday, wiping out what I had.
Today, we're going to be looking mainly at some more construction going on around Pennhurst. The main asylum campus is still abandoned but protected. Plans are being made to rehabilitate the buildings for use as a corporate center. However, the outer buildings are still owned by the state, who seems to have finally decided it's time for some of these buildings to go.
The one pictured here survived, probably since it was in better shape than the rest.
Optical is right next to the entrance, just like in Costco. Another similarity the chains have is how they both have some of the least inspired-looking decor I could imagine.
Since this store closed, rumors have been going around that this building will be knocked down so Walmart can expand their store next door into a Supercenter. I think Walmart still has control of the building at least, if they don't outright own it.
Some of Giant's new produce signage. There are a lot of small hanging ones like this. I like them, they're sorta fun to read while you shop.
The Deli, which is the only department in the store that still has the Clemens wall tile behind it. Aside from taking out the cafe and replacing the signage, Giant didn't do very much to this part of the store. Not really a surprise; I'm pretty sure Clemens expanded into this in their 2003 remodel. It used to be a smaller store, hence the lower ceiling and weird shape.
More recently, the fluorescent lights in the ceiling here were swapped out for LED's.
The gas station, which I think has been around since King's. I'm not sure if it would have been a King's Gas N Go, or if they always used the Weis name.
This restaurant is set up in a very old building. My guess is early 1800's. It was probably built as a tavern or inn. It has been operating as Olyvia's, an Italian restaurant (which there seems to be no shortage of in this area, and they all seem highly rated) for several years now.
This sign was out by one of the larger roads in town, directing people back to an inn further into town. I'd guess the building has been in operation since at least the 1800's, if not older, and appears to have been abandoned for a while. The most recent streetview is from 2009, and shows the place in pretty rough condition.
This Sheetz originally opened in the 80's or 90's, and was heavily remodeled in 2012. Thankfully, the glass atrium was retained in the renovation.
I'm really happy with how this picture turned out.
On the way home later at night, I decided to go inside. This was one of the relatively few stores to still have the 90's red decor, although it was remodeled to their current look shortly after I visited.
The "Prescription" sign below it also helps make this decor look older than it really is.
I feel like that light on the bottom wasn't original, it really doesn't look right. Other service departments had track lights mounted to their trellises, which is what I think would have been here originally.
The Fruit Topping sign off to the side was added to the store later. It's from the Fresh decor, which this store has a few elements of sprinkled in.
Part of the reason the decor looks so bare here is because of the drop ceiling. It was designed for new-build stores with open ceilings, with more room to hang stuff. Other stores have lattices and decorative metal beams hanging over this area.
The bump out is Seafood, and the green plastic wall is what separates the produce from the rest of the store.
There's quite a bit of floor space back there. In other remodeled stores I've been in, they've shrunk the bakery further back into this area to take advantage of the extra floor space.
I've noticed a few of those turned-out lights on the ceiling in my pictures. I'm not sure what purpose they're supposed to serve. My guess is they're for security, but they're the exact same as the ones in the rest of the store. It would be easier just to leave a few of those on when they close for the night than wiring up an extra circuit for these.
I liked how the spotlights shine through the corrugated plastic.
I really liked this sign for some reason. I think it must have been because the bottom was so satisfyingly level (unlike my picture of it :P).
I don't know exactly what it's for, but my guess is they showcase certain items here and switch them out every once in a while.
The Frozen aisle, which has its own sign in addition to the two normal directory signs. Seems pretty pointless to have both, when they say literally the exact same thing.
I think a lot of stores don't have directory signs over frozen for this reason. If you can tell it's frozen, that's all you really need to know.
Alcohol permit in the window. I had a feeling this store was going to be remodeled when I saw this. However, this store also had a floral department done in their previous Fresh decor, so they clearly weren't entirely opposed to adding stuff without redoing the whole store.
That wasn't the case this time, as it was among the first to receive the new Farmer's Market decor.
Kmart opened this location in the 90's, replacing a Grandway store. Grandway didn't have much of a presence in PA, most of their stores were concentrated in their home state of Jersey along with their sister chain Grand Union.
Kmart gave this store the deluxe version of the brown and orange remodel in 2006, and then redid it again to the red and white decor in 2011. I believe it is their most successful store in the Philadelphia area. It's also the one I shop at most frequently, since it usually has a better selection than the Phoenixville store.
I think this was 1N's first branch location. It's definitely an older building, I'd guess from the 40's or 50's, and is in 1N's hometown. I think their main location has always been in downtown West Chester but this may have been an early attempt to branch out.
I always thought it was cool we still had one of the oldest banks.
At this point in time, I had already found out that Giant definitely was going to expand and that the former Rite Aid space next door was going to come down to make way for it. I also knew they would be closing for "remodeling" next month. At this point, I was just sorta waiting for stuff to start happening. What I didn't know yet was that the old SuperFresh/Clemens was going to be torn down completely. I know I have a decent amount of photos of the inside, but I can't shake the feeling that I should have gotten more.
This is the closest store to Wawa's headquarters. As a result, they've tested a few prototypes here. This was the first store to have their (then-standard) rounded-top roadside sign replaced with a square-top one with 3-D letters. Oddly enough, it wasn't remodeled for over a year after their their project started. this picture was from its first week after reopening.
Here's how it looked before remodeling.
After learning that this place was condemned, I decided I should get some more photos before it was too late.
It was late 2016, I was neck-deep in college applications and had just taken the SAT's. Since my exam was somewhat nearby (West Chester East HS if that means anything to you), I figured I probably deserved a treat. So I came down here.
This place has a pretty lengthy history, which I provided on my last photo of this place. It's long enough I'm not going to type it out again.
I haven't been back in the area for a while, but I heard this was torn down in late 2017, which is a little surprising given the resistance locals had to even remodeling the building a few years ago.
The back of the building. For years they tried to keep the place sealed up, but gave up in 2014 when it was decided this was going to be demolished. Anything historic or of significant value (mainly the chandeliers and woodwork) were removed, either by scavengers or hopefully a salvage company. After that, a series of break-ins eventually opened this place up to the point where you could just walk into it.
The original 1745 building is the area in the middle of the picture with the lower roof and one smaller dormer.
You might recognize this as my last profile picture. See if you can guess where the new one is from!
Both the glass doors here were busted out. There was really nothing keeping people out.
There also weren't any No Trespassing signs, which I chose to interpret as an invitation inside.
They didn't paint over it since this room originally had wallpaper. The moisture getting into the building over they years made it all peel off.
How about that gold leaf on the ceiling? I thought that was incredible. Edit: Wasn't that a Black Keys song?
Up on the second floor. This floor had a much more open layout, but somehow managed to be easier to get lost in. There's a maze of small rooms and half-staircases behind this wall, which connected the 1860 building to the 1745 one.
Most of the second floor was used as extra dining space, although there was one bedroom in the 1745 part.
The basement emergency exit. I decided with the amount of people that go through this building, I didn't want to risk running into anyone in the dark down there. This is as close as we're going to get to the basement.
I think those lights were thrown down there by scrappers when they stole the copper wiring.
Before we conclude the tour, I'll leave you with a video tour somebody posted a couple months ago. It looks like it was taken around the same time I got these photos (it couldn't have been much later, at least).
There's also an old logo Wawa dairy crate. More recently, the dairy has adopted the same logo as the convenience store. The ones with the all-caps logo are becoming pretty rare in stores (probably because people keep stealing them and restaurants like this won't return them). Despite that, you don't have to look hard at all to find them being used by others. Almost every sports facility in the area has one filled with balls.
Tea, anybody?
These tea bags were scattered on the floor in the kitchen. Even if they're in protective wrappers, I wouldn't trust them. With all that paint on the floor, I'm sure you'd get lead poisoning from it.
Now you also know what my backup sneakers looked like in 2016. These were already old then, hence why I was wearing them into an abandoned building. As Head in the Suburbs said, "Doesn't matter, they are decaf".
It's been close enough to a month since I was last here, so I decided to come back today and check out the remodel progress. Things have really started changing! You may remember how this vestibule looked last time. My guess was right, although I never would have guessed why. The doors have been moved to the front of the space,as expected. However, under the awning where the entrances used to be, they're building an addition!
The fact that they're putting up more red cinderblock makes me thing they're going to try matching the existing design, rather than remodel the exterior to their current look (Which wouldn't be hard, all they'd have to do is slap some tile over what's already here).
I'm really hoping they're reusing the old Starbucks kiosk somewhere else, that's new enough I'd hate to see it go to waste.
Notice anything different about the Produce section?
There's actually a few things, but first and foremost, the decor's gone! I was worried they weren't going to give this store a full remodel, and just do the "El Cheapo" decor swap. Thankfully, this one seems to be getting the full Grayscale decor. All of the actual walls have had their lightboxes and fake columns stripped off. It looks like they're still working on stripping down the old Fun House 2 decor from the parapet walls over the departments. Since those are just boards and not an actual wall, they might just be taken down altogether.
Another major change is that the spotlights and trim over the old organics section have been removed and replaced with LED strips. The fact that they did this here and didn't do all the store's lighting makes me think they're probably going to keep the original ones
Side note: A press release from Giant that came out after this remodel was announced said they're also going to remodel all three stores in Lancaster and one in Lititz. Interestingly, both stores with the "El Cheapo" look are included on that list. I get why they would do a half-@$$ed job redoing stores that were slated for a full remodel later, but that begs the question why did they even have to change out the signage in the first place? It's been literal MONTHS since that decor was put in.
Since the walls around the Pharmacy were drywall, as opposed to whatever kind of foam/particle board the Bakery has, it has been stripped bare.
Seeing that it is open during the remodel, I have to wonder why they don't have some sort of temporary sign up. PA has weird laws regarding the display of the Pharmacy sign- if the store's not open for business, they have to have the sign covered. I'd think the opposite would apply for one that is open, i.e. they would have to have the sign visible.
Comments
Post a Comment