Unplugged
Construction, Week 80
^ Betcha weren’t expecting to see that tagline resurrected, were you? ;) To tell you the truth – I wasn’t either, haha! But it felt fitting for this photo, hence why I retroactively have stuck it up there.
In case you’re totally oblivious to the situation I’m referencing (which is 100% okay, by the way, so don’t worry if you’re unfamiliar!), allow me to explain/recap for you: beginning late July 2015, my local Hernando Kroger began its transformation into a Kroger Marketplace, which is essentially Kroger’s answer to Walmart’s Supercenters: a sort of hybrid grocery-general merchandise store, with the focus naturally on grocery and the in-store service/prepared foods departments (being Kroger, of course) but also featuring expanded pharmacy, health and beauty, pet, baby, and seasonal departments, and adding into the mix home décor, apparel, toys, and office sections. Construction on that continued for over a year until late 2016, when the new Marketplace opened one year ago tomorrow, September 14th, 2016.
Following that event, however, the work was not done: the existing Hernando Kroger had to be demolished and turned into a parking lot for the new store. That portion of the project took an additional four months or so. Finally, the entire saga “culminated” in the “grand opening” of the Marketplace on January 18th, 2017.
You can probably guess, though, given the fact that I have the words “culminated” and “grand opening” in quotes, that that doesn’t quite tell the whole story. Well, you’d be right. First of all, that January 2017 “grand opening” is a stretch because as I said, the store actually opened several months prior, back in September 2016. But I understand why Kroger held it then; they had been waiting for the demolition to take place and parking lot to be finished.
Another component I haven’t even mentioned yet is the fact that the existing fuel center was also demolished and replaced by a new one concurrently with the parking lot restructuring. That’s where the “culminated” comes in: while technically the new fuel center had indeed opened just in time for that January 2017 “grand opening,” the site of the old one had yet to be fully finalized. Likewise, a few other odd things here and there around the general site still needed addressing at the time of the “grand opening.” Nevertheless, having covered the construction for 78 weeks at that point (!), I saw my opportunity and took it, ending my coverage in conjunction with the “grand opening” – whether or not that date represented the true “culmination” of the project.
So… that leads me to what you see pictured here. As it turns out, the old fuel center site was de-fuel-center-ized within just two weeks of where I left off: this photo was taken on February 11th, 2017, which would have placed it during Week 80 of construction had I continued the series. The fuel center used to be within that area where the grass is noticeably lighter; see this photo for comparison.
At the front of the parcel, you can see the one major(-ish!) thing that I never got to show you as a part of my Hdo Kroger project album: perhaps the very last touch to be applied to the entire Marketplace experience, that new low-rise electronic fuel center price sign here at the Commerce Street entrance to the property. Here is a shot of the sign that it replaced. Note that it was purposefully designed to match the look of the other new sign Kroger put up on the property over at the East Parkway entrance to the store, seen here when first installed and here in my final photo of the entire construction album. l_dawg2000, who also extensively covered this project (and is doing a week-long tribute to it this week as well; check it out beginning at this photo!), captured and posted a better, closer-up pic of this new sign, which you can see here.
Thankfully, the other existing signs at both Mount Pleasant Road entrances to the property were allowed to remain in place – though as l_dawg suggested, that was less due to Kroger being inattentive and more due to the chain being “budget-minded.” I’m very much inclined to agree with that, not least in light of the fact that they have since virtually abandoned all planned new Marketplace store constructions, affecting local sites in Oxford and Arlington, but also due to the fact that all progress at this site literally seemed to screech to a halt with the completion of the work you see pictured above. If you were following my series in real time, then you might remember how at the end of the album, I mentioned that a few sections of paving remained to be done, most notably in front of the strip center, in front of the new fuel center, and along the southern driveway parallel to the storefront. In those linked descriptions, I wrote a bit about hoping that that would all be taken care of in a timely manner. But nope – each of those items has remained untouched, exactly the same as they were (besides the occasional filling-in of a pothole) when those photos were taken.
Not only that, but this very same fuel center sign – that’s right, the brand-new one pictured here – is ALSO more or less the same as you see it in this February 2017 shot! Although neither I nor l_dawg have gotten pictures of it since (or at least, I know I haven’t; maybe he has but hasn’t posted them, but I digress), the sign did manage to receive its brick base shortly after I took this photo, and the price signs were lit up accordingly. But then, not very long after that, there was either some goings-on at the new fuel center which required stuff to be dug up, including this sign, or else some unfortunate car swerved off of Commerce and rammed into it, or maybe it was both (I can confirm the former did indeed happen, but I have no clue if this sign thing was related to it or not), but suffice to say that the poor fuel center sign spent less than three months (I would estimate) working properly before it was again forced back to square one, much like you see it here. Indeed, it actually looks even more pitiful, really: the brick base is shattered, with bricks all over the grass, and the main sign, while not dented or damaged at all it seems like, is canted at a 45 degree angle now. It’s a pretty sad turn of events, and even more disheartening to know that the sign has sat that way for months now, and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future sans any investment from Kroger. :/ (cont.)
Kroger Fuel Center (now demolished) // 2380 Mount Pleasant Road, Hernando, MS 38632
(c) 2017 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 :)
Unplugged
Construction, Week 80
^ Betcha weren’t expecting to see that tagline resurrected, were you? ;) To tell you the truth – I wasn’t either, haha! But it felt fitting for this photo, hence why I retroactively have stuck it up there.
In case you’re totally oblivious to the situation I’m referencing (which is 100% okay, by the way, so don’t worry if you’re unfamiliar!), allow me to explain/recap for you: beginning late July 2015, my local Hernando Kroger began its transformation into a Kroger Marketplace, which is essentially Kroger’s answer to Walmart’s Supercenters: a sort of hybrid grocery-general merchandise store, with the focus naturally on grocery and the in-store service/prepared foods departments (being Kroger, of course) but also featuring expanded pharmacy, health and beauty, pet, baby, and seasonal departments, and adding into the mix home décor, apparel, toys, and office sections. Construction on that continued for over a year until late 2016, when the new Marketplace opened one year ago tomorrow, September 14th, 2016.
Following that event, however, the work was not done: the existing Hernando Kroger had to be demolished and turned into a parking lot for the new store. That portion of the project took an additional four months or so. Finally, the entire saga “culminated” in the “grand opening” of the Marketplace on January 18th, 2017.
You can probably guess, though, given the fact that I have the words “culminated” and “grand opening” in quotes, that that doesn’t quite tell the whole story. Well, you’d be right. First of all, that January 2017 “grand opening” is a stretch because as I said, the store actually opened several months prior, back in September 2016. But I understand why Kroger held it then; they had been waiting for the demolition to take place and parking lot to be finished.
Another component I haven’t even mentioned yet is the fact that the existing fuel center was also demolished and replaced by a new one concurrently with the parking lot restructuring. That’s where the “culminated” comes in: while technically the new fuel center had indeed opened just in time for that January 2017 “grand opening,” the site of the old one had yet to be fully finalized. Likewise, a few other odd things here and there around the general site still needed addressing at the time of the “grand opening.” Nevertheless, having covered the construction for 78 weeks at that point (!), I saw my opportunity and took it, ending my coverage in conjunction with the “grand opening” – whether or not that date represented the true “culmination” of the project.
So… that leads me to what you see pictured here. As it turns out, the old fuel center site was de-fuel-center-ized within just two weeks of where I left off: this photo was taken on February 11th, 2017, which would have placed it during Week 80 of construction had I continued the series. The fuel center used to be within that area where the grass is noticeably lighter; see this photo for comparison.
At the front of the parcel, you can see the one major(-ish!) thing that I never got to show you as a part of my Hdo Kroger project album: perhaps the very last touch to be applied to the entire Marketplace experience, that new low-rise electronic fuel center price sign here at the Commerce Street entrance to the property. Here is a shot of the sign that it replaced. Note that it was purposefully designed to match the look of the other new sign Kroger put up on the property over at the East Parkway entrance to the store, seen here when first installed and here in my final photo of the entire construction album. l_dawg2000, who also extensively covered this project (and is doing a week-long tribute to it this week as well; check it out beginning at this photo!), captured and posted a better, closer-up pic of this new sign, which you can see here.
Thankfully, the other existing signs at both Mount Pleasant Road entrances to the property were allowed to remain in place – though as l_dawg suggested, that was less due to Kroger being inattentive and more due to the chain being “budget-minded.” I’m very much inclined to agree with that, not least in light of the fact that they have since virtually abandoned all planned new Marketplace store constructions, affecting local sites in Oxford and Arlington, but also due to the fact that all progress at this site literally seemed to screech to a halt with the completion of the work you see pictured above. If you were following my series in real time, then you might remember how at the end of the album, I mentioned that a few sections of paving remained to be done, most notably in front of the strip center, in front of the new fuel center, and along the southern driveway parallel to the storefront. In those linked descriptions, I wrote a bit about hoping that that would all be taken care of in a timely manner. But nope – each of those items has remained untouched, exactly the same as they were (besides the occasional filling-in of a pothole) when those photos were taken.
Not only that, but this very same fuel center sign – that’s right, the brand-new one pictured here – is ALSO more or less the same as you see it in this February 2017 shot! Although neither I nor l_dawg have gotten pictures of it since (or at least, I know I haven’t; maybe he has but hasn’t posted them, but I digress), the sign did manage to receive its brick base shortly after I took this photo, and the price signs were lit up accordingly. But then, not very long after that, there was either some goings-on at the new fuel center which required stuff to be dug up, including this sign, or else some unfortunate car swerved off of Commerce and rammed into it, or maybe it was both (I can confirm the former did indeed happen, but I have no clue if this sign thing was related to it or not), but suffice to say that the poor fuel center sign spent less than three months (I would estimate) working properly before it was again forced back to square one, much like you see it here. Indeed, it actually looks even more pitiful, really: the brick base is shattered, with bricks all over the grass, and the main sign, while not dented or damaged at all it seems like, is canted at a 45 degree angle now. It’s a pretty sad turn of events, and even more disheartening to know that the sign has sat that way for months now, and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future sans any investment from Kroger. :/ (cont.)
Kroger Fuel Center (now demolished) // 2380 Mount Pleasant Road, Hernando, MS 38632
(c) 2017 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 :)