To Dick's, Ikea, Kmart, and Beyond!

 Dick's, Downingtown, PA
This store opened in the mid-90's. It was given a light remodel around 2013, but still looks pretty similar to when it first opened.

 There used to be a big hanging scoreboard over the middle of the store that was removed in 2013.

 This store has drop ceilings over most of the sales floor, which is becoming a rare find in Dick's stores as locations are replaced and remodeled.

 Verizon, KOP
Evening shot of the new(ish) Verizon store. Despite only being 2 years old, it was remodeled and had its logo replaced in 2018.

 Bassett, KOP
It's finally finished and open for business! It sorta bothers me they don't have a sign on the side rectangle, since that looks like it was clearly intended to hold one.

Wawa, Norristown, PAThis location was built in 2017. The site was cleared a few years prior when they widened the roads around the block and demolished the buildings that were here beforehand.

 Wachovia?, Bridgeport, PA
I think this closed as a Wachovia prior to the Wells Fargo buyout. It's been vacant since at least 2007. It appears to have been sold sometime after this picture was taken, but nothing's changed yet. It most likely began life as a local bank in the 20's.

 IKEA, Conshohocken, PA
Ikea built this location in 2005, replacing their Plymouth Meeting Mall location. The PMM location was their first US location, which opened in the early 80's. Their headquarters is still in Plymouth Meeting, so this operates as their flagship location.

 These pictures were from my first time visiting here. I enjoyed their café and Swedish meatballs enough I was back within a week. :P

 I think this area serves as overflow café seating in addition to a furniture display.

 The main display floor. Despite the arrows on the floor, I did manage to get lost in here for a few minutes.

 Office Building, Lionville, PA
I really like how this place looks at night. It's also a great example of early 90's architecture.

 ACME/Kmart, Thorndale, PA
This opened in the early 70's as a strip mall with Kmart at one end and ACME on the other. ACME moved to a new location in 1989. In the mid-90's, Kmart demolished the stores between their existing one and the ACME and filled in between, thus occupying the entire center. Clocking in at 110,000 square feet, it was the by far the largest Kmart I'd ever been to. Unfortunately, they closed in early 2019 as a result of the bankruptcy. I feel like this will probably sit vacant for a long time. If anything, I'd imagine this being replaced with an apartment complex.

Looking down towards where Kmart's entrance would have originally been. The cherry trees by the wall are on either side of the former awning's site. The part with the taller wall was where ACME began.

Kmart upgraded the parking lot lights from mercury to sodium vapor back in 2013, which made me think this store was doing better than it actually was.

 Inside, they continued the style of the 70's store over into the expansion, sole difference being the air vents. They were the only way to tell which part of the store you were in.

 Looking across the front of the store. To give a reference for the length of the store, I was probably about 70 feet from the other side wall.

 Electronics, with TV's actually showing stuff!

 I'm not sure if that record picture on the wall was supposed to be throwback or if this store's really that dated. I'm pretty sure records had fallen out of fashion by the time this store was redone, and Kmart's not "cool" enough to sell records now that they've become trendy again. It may be hipster to still shop at Kmart, but a whole different type of hipster than the ones that buy records.

 In the old part of the store, as indicated by the round air vents. I think the food department stayed in its original location despite the expansion. Overall, I think they didn't change around the layout too much. This store just had an insanely large clothing department.

 The food department here was also fairly large. They actually had a decent frozen and refrigerated selection.

 I'm not quite sure why, but the original garden center was also torn down and rebuilt in what I think was the same location as it was originally. It was closed in summer 2018, and its contents relocated to some shelves along the front of the store.

 Looking towards the garden center side entrance. I'm pretty sure these doors were locked long before the department was closed.

 Former auto center office became home to Layaway. I'm not sure what happened to the old counter, but I don't remember seeing space for it anywhere. The weird thing is that this space would have been used by the auto center up until the 2000's, well after this store's last major remodel.

 Early Sears-era Craftsman signage, designed to sorta match the orange and brown décor. This store finished out its days with mostly the Big K look.

 Furniture department in back.

 To give you an impression for ho big the clothing section was, this is only half of it.

 I think the fitting rooms signage was replaced in the 2000's, around the same time Layaway was moved to the auto center.

 Auto center doors are still lit up. One thing I noticed was that these lights and the ones around the back of the store were also upgraded to sodium vapor, while the ones along the front wall of the store were still mercury vapor.

 Around back of the former ACME, the old loading dock jut-out was still in place. You can still see where the docks would have been. I'm not sure what Kmart has against this type of dock, but I've noticed that practically all of their stores just have an awning in back for deliveries.

Kinda dark look at the other side of the former ACME. The lit-up area was the part built in the 90's to connect the ACME and Kmart buildings.

 Downsized Playplace

At some point, the Coatesville McDonald's shrunk down their Playplace to make room for extra seating. It makes for an unusual dining area. I'm guessing the hanging lights were added the same time. Notice the original lights were left up there, but are no longer in service.