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Since I don’t have any directly-related (or even tangentially-related, lol!) teaser photos for this week’s subject(s – yes, plural!*), I’m simply making do for today’s uploads with a few updates from around the area.
First up, as shown here, is the former Sam’s Club on Getwell Road in Memphis (the first Sam’s Club, in fact, to open in Memphis) – you might recall that this store was one of the 63 that were abruptly shuttered back in January of this year. While Walmart could certainly have done a better job of announcing all of those stores’ closures in advance, one thing that they *did* announce after the fact was that a number of the closed stores would be converted to e-commerce fulfillment centers… and that the former Memphis Sam’s Club would be the first (of approximately 10) to get that treatment! No doubt Memphis was chosen both due to its relative proximity to Walmart headquarters in Bentonville, and its status as FedEx headquarters.
Anyway, the conversion only took about six months to complete (“less than four months,” actually, if Walmart’s official press release is to be believed), with the newly-christened fulfillment center celebrating its grand opening on June 14th, 2018. With this shot having been taken just two weeks later, on June 26th, what you see here is what the store will look like from now on: unfortunately, the same as it had been since it closed… a clearly-former Sam’s Club, complete with diamond-logo-shaped labelscar. The new fulfillment center, you see, has elected not to put up any exterior signage, so if you didn’t know any better, you’d think this warehouse is just as abandoned as the outparcel that’s also visible in this shot.
That said, the conversion is indeed making good use of the inside of the space, and that’s all that really matters, right? Check out some pics of the interior at the Memphis Business Journal’s write-up here… and if you’re interested, The Commercial Appeal has an article of its own, too.
* – If you do want to guess, here’s your hint: two Kroger stores, in two states. Have at it. 😛
Sam’s Club (now closed) // 1805 Getwell Road, Memphis, TN 38111
(c) 2018 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I’d appreciate if you’d say who 🙂
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