Albertsons Florida Blog
Kmart is The Storage Place
Kmart #7310
4711 Babcock Street NE, Palm Bay, FL - Palm Bay Center
Opened 1979. Closed forever on September 7, 2014, leaving Brevard County with zero Kmart stores. Was converted into a U-Haul Storage and Truck Rental facility in January 2016.
I'm sure most of you are thinking "That AFB built up all of this suspense just to show us pictures of a storage place!" Honestly, a storage place was on the bottom of my list of possible reuses for my old local Kmart. There are already three self-storage centers on this corner already (not counting this new one), and another storage place that just opened in a former document vault that Harris Corp. sold off late last year less than a mile to the east of here. As you probably remember, I had my bets placed that Publix would buy the old Kmart building and tear it down to build a replacement for their aging, 35+ year old store in the same plaza. I guess that isn't happening, but this would have been their perfect opportunity to do so. But I guess on the flip side, the old Kmart building will end up living on in almost perfectly intact form as the U-Haul Storage Center. The U-Haul Storage Center is in fact open for business, and was open when I was taking these pictures. U-Haul uses the old Garden Center entrance as their main entrance, and the entire main store is where the storage units are contained, and are accessed from the interior entrance inside the garden center.
Kmart is The Storage Place
Kmart #7310
4711 Babcock Street NE, Palm Bay, FL - Palm Bay Center
Opened 1979. Closed forever on September 7, 2014, leaving Brevard County with zero Kmart stores. Was converted into a U-Haul Storage and Truck Rental facility in January 2016.
I'm sure most of you are thinking "That AFB built up all of this suspense just to show us pictures of a storage place!" Honestly, a storage place was on the bottom of my list of possible reuses for my old local Kmart. There are already three self-storage centers on this corner already (not counting this new one), and another storage place that just opened in a former document vault that Harris Corp. sold off late last year less than a mile to the east of here. As you probably remember, I had my bets placed that Publix would buy the old Kmart building and tear it down to build a replacement for their aging, 35+ year old store in the same plaza. I guess that isn't happening, but this would have been their perfect opportunity to do so. But I guess on the flip side, the old Kmart building will end up living on in almost perfectly intact form as the U-Haul Storage Center. The U-Haul Storage Center is in fact open for business, and was open when I was taking these pictures. U-Haul uses the old Garden Center entrance as their main entrance, and the entire main store is where the storage units are contained, and are accessed from the interior entrance inside the garden center.