Back in the Homeland

 

Today we've got another set of photos from a weekend I went home- and unlike last time I'm actually staying in the home area. We've got a few different stores I'm excited to share with you, so lets get to it!

Starbucks/Buena Vista/El Limon, Paoli, PA

Last time I showed you this was, Buena Vista had just opened up in the former Paoli Starbucks. I thought it was strange, as the building its in was slated for demolition to make way for the Paoli Station redevelopment. Flash forward a year or so, and its been bought by local tacqueria chain El Limon. But only this location. Buena Vista's other area locations are still going strong. I have no clue why El Limon wanted it, as the building was living on borrowed time already, but they did. The building still stands, but all the tenants were evicted earlier this year to make way for the project.

1N/Susquehanna/BB&T/UFinancial, Lionville, PA

It's been a long time since I've given you an update on this place! BB&T operated it for only a couple months before dropping it when they bought National Penn, who had a location across the street (which incidentally also has since closed, but without replacement). It sat vacant for a few years, but in late 2017 found new life in the financial world- not as a bank, but as a financial advisor.

Sonoco Paper Mill, Downingtown, PA

This paper mill first opened in the 1880's, and sold to Sonoco in 1968. It operated here until a fire broke out in 2005, severely damaging several of the buildings. The fire damaged parts were quickly torn down once Sonoco announced they would not be reopening this plant, leaving behind a very open building that quickly became popular with the urbexers, and even got attention from the president. Some of the buildings were later repurposed- the parts across the railroad tracks were adapted into restaurants. I believe the space currently home to Victory Brewing Co was also once one of their buildings, but sold off prior to the fire. It was on my list of places I hoped to explore until 2015, when an explorer tripped and fell two stories in here to his death. That quickly changed my mind, and also made the town realize it was time to do something about this property. They made a deal with the Hankin Group, who plans to develop this into housing and also add a new train station. Demolition was just getting underway when I got these photos, but the new buildings still have yet to break ground.

It was kinda pretty for an industrial building, so seeing it go was a little bittersweet. Plenty of people I went to high school with explored this, even after the tragedy, which makes me kinda wish I was brave enough to go in. Better safe than sorry though.

I figure the stone parts are the original factory building, and the brick was added on later. It's strange to see they'd be using stone on an industrial building as recently as the 1880's-anything using it after that was most likely only for aesthetics, so part of me wonders if this was an even older complex  that the paper mill moved into.

The houses across the street, which I think were for the factory bosses, were coming down for the project too. It's funny, these were abandoned after the mill closed, but then unboarded and fixed up a couple years later as rentals, only to be abandoned again when Hankin took ownership.

They were some good-looking houses too, which I think would have fit nicely in the new development.

At this point, it was the only one of the 9 houses standing, so I took a few photos of it.

The wooden addition on the rear of the house had already been yanked off. It's a pretty big place; I can't tell if it was a duplex or just a large single-family house.

The two doors indicate it may have been a duplex, though I've seen a few single family ones with doors like that as well. The difference in stone color can be attributed to the rear addition being two different rooms.

This is the only view I could get of the inside. I can't see much but can tell you it must have been pretty cool in there.

Two of the houses that came down were brick, hence the difference in rubble here.

Sunoco, West Chester, PA

Sunoco closed this location sometime around 2000, and the building was turned into a farmer's market. Around this time, the portion on the right was added on. They did a good job with the addition, it ties in nicely to the existing roof. If I didn't know better I would have thought that was an original part of the building. The Farmers market closed around 2014, and the building sat vacant for a while. Finally, in 2019, a sign shop opened up here.

ACME, West Chester, PA

This store's got a short but eventful history. It first opened in 2004 to great fanfare, and quickly drove the Thriftway next door out of business. In an act of revenge, the Thriftway franchise's owners sold the land the store sat on to Giant. Following Giant's opening, this store went from crazy busy to practically empty. It closed in 2009. The building sat vacant for over a decade, but as of this year has become home to a clinic.

Most of the windows were fogged over, but if I stood on the ledge and held my camera over my head I could get a look inside. It had the Albertsons Marketplace/Santa Fe decor, which despite being an Albertsons look I recently learned was an adaptation of American Stores' (ACME's corporate name when they were still independent) final decor, Farmer's Market.

The vestibule still had a bit of signage up. It's looking a little rough.

I like the skylights this store had; ACME never seemed to be big on them, I haven't seen them in any other stores. This store as a whole would have been really nice, it's sad it died so quickly. Ironically, ACME's other (62-year-old) store in town is one of the top locations in the chain. We'll be looking at that later this post. This one couldn't even make it a tenth that long.

It's a decently sized store, not huge but I'd say above average for the chain.

Going around the side, I saw a garage door was recently added which got my hopes up something was finally happening. That wasn't the case, next time I drove by the whole place was still vacant and now boarded up too. I suspect there were some plans for the store that fell through.

Looking through the windows in the garage door, across the store from the other direction. The service departments have been gutted out, leaving only the tile backsplash. The green wall towards the front of the store would have been the Citizen's Bank branch. The wall the door is in would have been where the pharmacy was.

Rubinstein's, West Chester, PA

Rubinstein's was a locally-owned office supply store that opened its doors in 1915 (obviously not in this location, but that's all the information I could find). They went online-only in 2016 and closed the store. 4 years later, the closing signs are still up outside the building.

Rite Aid, West Chester, PA

This is an easy store to pass by. Prior to my visit, I always forgot it existed. It opened with the center in 1987, and to date has had zero work done to it...

...meaning the 80's rainbow stripes décor is still going strong! There's still a few stores with this look out there, but its rare enough I get excited about it. I thought with this location under my belt I had every Rite Aid décor covered, but I recently discovered there's a mess of transitional decors used in between the successor red/blue stripe décor and the pastel look. To make things more complicated, Rite Aid also has a tendency to replace signage without repainting the walls, mashing up a bunch of them too.

And speaking of décor mashups, here we've got some aisle markers from the 2000's Customer World look. One of the interesting things about this décor is the mirrored back wall, which Rite Aid hasn't used since the 80's but other pharmacies seem to still be doing.

The red/blue stripes décor that followed this kept the same basic design, but swapped out the different colors of stripes for just the chain's logo's (now former) colors and replaced the orange floor stripes with thinner blue ones.

I always refer to this as their 80's look, but if you want to nit-pick I have heard it actually made its debut in the later 70's. It did last most of the following decade though, red/blue came out in 1989 if I remember correctly.

It is such an outdated look but I absolutely love it.

Grandway/Kmart, West Chester, PA

This store opened in 1959 as a Grandway, which was Grand Union's department store arm and only reach into the Philly area. It closed when the division was dissolved in 1979 and was picked up by Kmart. They did a major expansion and remodel in 1995, and redid the interior twice since then. It was one of the chain's top stores, but closed as unexpectedly as a Kmart possibly can in 2019. It's still vacant and the signs remain up.

The most recent remodel was around 2012 to the red and white look, which I'm not a fan of but will admit that it really brightens up the store.

Previously, it had the 2000's orange & brown look, which this wall sign is left over from. It's by far my favorite décor of theirs, but unlike this one was very dark.

Not that this was a particularly great store, but compared to other Kmarts was very clean, well-stocked, and well-maintained.

I'm not sure which remodel brought the electronics display with the neon stripe... possibly the orange and brown? Also, it's amazing seeing a Kmart with electronics still in the electronics section.

The vestibule had a neat clock above it, which I bet was left over from Grandway. I'm praying somebody saves this if/when they ever clear out the inside of the store.

RadioShack/Sprint/T-Mobile, West Chester, PA

The RadioShack a few doors down from Kmart walled off a large chunk of their store and made it into a Sprint instead of just co-branding the existing store. This made it easy for Sprint to keep the doors open after RadioShack closed. As of this Summer, Sprint is no more as they have been bought out by T-Mobile.

ACME, West Chester, PA

Here's the store I mentioned earlier in the post. My picture from the outside didn't come out well, so this will be an interior-only stour. Don't worry, I've covered this one before so you're not missing out on anything. It's just their standard 90's "fortress" façade. The store first opened in 1958, but you wouldn't be able to guess from the looks of it. They expanded the store in the 70's, and again in the 80's, followed by a massive remodel to the Red/White/Blue décor in the 90's. Inside, the store had the final version of the Fresh & Healthy décor at the time I visited, but has since been remodeled to Quality Built. The floral department here was put in this alcove during the 90's remodel, but bumped out onto the sales floor during the Fresh & Healthy remodel. The old alcove was turned into storage. If you look closely, you can see the trim in there still has purple and green paint from the Industrial Circus decor, which this store had in between Red/White/Blue and Fresh & Healthy. 

The Fresh & Healthy remodel was less thorough than the Industrial Circus remodel, and kept a few elements of it, such as the checkered tile and wooden bar by the Pharmacy. Quality Built also left these elements alone, but changed a lot more on the walls.

This décor looked pretty fresh and new when it first came out, but I like it less and less as time goes on. It's so cheap. The walls are just solid colors and all of the signage is on flat hanging panels. The new décor is an upgrade not only in the looks department but in the sense that it adds some substance back to the walls as well.

Frozen was likely moved here during the Industrial Circus remodel. The disconnected mercury vapor lights in the ceiling indicate it was home to the Max-Pac department (ACME's short-lived attempt at wholesaling) following the Red/White/Blue remodel. Usually these departments had handing lights, but it would seem this store just reused some of the ones it had previously. 70's and 80's stores had these lights throughout the entire store; the 90's is when they went back to fluorescents.

Some more painfully flat décor. Another complaint I have about this look is how the signage catches glare from the lights making them hard to read from angles like this.

The store's ceiling here was reshaped in the 90's remodel. I'm guessing the higher ceiling was the original height, and it was dropped down in areas for the red/white/blue remodel.

Produce surprisingly kept the 90's faux wood block tile through all of the remodels. Ceramic tile would be a chore to chip out and replace, but it's painful to push a cart over so they have taken it out in some remodels.

I can't tell you what she's doing tonight, but I can tell you what I'll be doing... homework that I've put off all weekend and am now beginning to panic about. Cheers!

Stay tuned for my Halloween post next Saturday!!!