Big Lots interior
Big Lots #1704 (35,545 square feet)
300 Enterprise Street, Sterling Park Shopping Mall, Sterling, VA
Opened in 2003; originally Safeway (opened in 1967, expanded in the late 1970s, closed/relocated October 11th, 2000)
It appears that most of the Big Lots locations on the August closing docket shuttered within the past week, including the stores in Manassas, Charlottesville, and Lynchburg (a store I wanted to document but ran out of time to do so); as of this writing, the closing stores in North Chesterfield, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Woodbridge are in their final days of operation. In the meantime, another docket was released, and the only Virginia location I recall seeing listed was the Sterling store. This is one I was very excited about visiting, because it occupies a very intact Marina-style Safeway! Safeway moved to a newly built store in the adjacent shopping plaza in 2000, replacing some big box retailer that I haven't been able to identify (judging by old satellite images, I wanna say it was a Zayre), and the building sat vacant for a few years before Big Lots took over. And since this was an early 2000s Big Lots, that means that they didn't modify certain areas of the store. Of course, the biggest pieces of eye candy here are the wooden ceiling beams, which are above the bulk of the salesfloor; the front end features a flat drop ceiling, which is from the store's late 1970s expansion. The front end also features the restrooms, plus it has a second-story area for employees that includes an enclosed walkway with windows across the register area, which I'm pretty sure would've been used by Safeway for loss prevention. Those features aside, the majority of the store is that plain old Big Lots look with white walls, a white tile floor, and no department signage to speak of. This store is an incredible piece of retail architecture history, but I fear that it may be ultimately bulldozed in the future because of its' age and not having the best visibility for the highway, plus I can't imagine another retailer that could fill it. Hopefully I'm wrong, though!
Big Lots interior
Big Lots #1704 (35,545 square feet)
300 Enterprise Street, Sterling Park Shopping Mall, Sterling, VA
Opened in 2003; originally Safeway (opened in 1967, expanded in the late 1970s, closed/relocated October 11th, 2000)
It appears that most of the Big Lots locations on the August closing docket shuttered within the past week, including the stores in Manassas, Charlottesville, and Lynchburg (a store I wanted to document but ran out of time to do so); as of this writing, the closing stores in North Chesterfield, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Woodbridge are in their final days of operation. In the meantime, another docket was released, and the only Virginia location I recall seeing listed was the Sterling store. This is one I was very excited about visiting, because it occupies a very intact Marina-style Safeway! Safeway moved to a newly built store in the adjacent shopping plaza in 2000, replacing some big box retailer that I haven't been able to identify (judging by old satellite images, I wanna say it was a Zayre), and the building sat vacant for a few years before Big Lots took over. And since this was an early 2000s Big Lots, that means that they didn't modify certain areas of the store. Of course, the biggest pieces of eye candy here are the wooden ceiling beams, which are above the bulk of the salesfloor; the front end features a flat drop ceiling, which is from the store's late 1970s expansion. The front end also features the restrooms, plus it has a second-story area for employees that includes an enclosed walkway with windows across the register area, which I'm pretty sure would've been used by Safeway for loss prevention. Those features aside, the majority of the store is that plain old Big Lots look with white walls, a white tile floor, and no department signage to speak of. This store is an incredible piece of retail architecture history, but I fear that it may be ultimately bulldozed in the future because of its' age and not having the best visibility for the highway, plus I can't imagine another retailer that could fill it. Hopefully I'm wrong, though!