KCRag Forum

Looks like Lowe's might be coming to Roeland Park, where they are finally about to fill the long-vacant Venture site. TIF would be used to tear the entire strip mall, rebuild the nasty Price Chopper, Lowe's, and other smaller stores. As a Midtowner I'm excited to have a Lowe's closer to the city, it will be nice to have an altenative to Home Depot.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascit ... 787629.htm

Good news since I live close to that area. Now if they could only do something with the Mexi-Mart next door, that place is always a dump.

I would love it too. All of the Lowes are so far out and the midtown Home Depot is the worst I've ever been to.

As long as nothing happens to the clientele at Price Chopper- that place is awsome! I used to shop there all the time. I haven't been to a store like that in Phoenix, even!

That Price Chopper is nasty. It's dirty, unkept, crowded, and the service sucks. Yeah it's great that they cater to the Mexican-American community, but the store itself sucks. Hopefully they will maintain it better after they go to the expense of rebuilding it.

dangerboy wrote:That Price Chopper is nasty. It's dirty, unkept, crowded, and the service sucks. Yeah it's great that they cater to the Mexican-American community, but the store itself sucks. Hopefully they will maintain it better after they go to the expense of rebuilding it.

Sounds like a description of the Santa Fe Price Chopper in Olathe.

Gee, all the stores back home in Texas are like that.
Cow heads, pigs feet, etc. Almost like Balducci's or Dean&Delucca.

Good news for NE JoCo. Hopefully it goes through.

What's the history of the building that currently houses Wal-Mart? I've been told that it once was a Lowe's, while others have said that it was a Sam's Club. The interior and exterior definitely are different from most Wal-Mart stores, so I assume that they didn't build it.

Its been a Wal-Mart for as long as I can remember- I'm sure it was never a Sam's- and I don;t think it would have been a Lowes.

phxcat wrote:Its been a Wal-Mart for as long as I can remember- I'm sure it was never a Sam's- and I don;t think it would have been a Lowes.

The triangular peaks along the roof sure look like the design of the older Lowe's stores. Plus, if you look closely above the main entrance, you can see the outline of where another reatiler's name apparently used to be. It was a square sign, and I've never seen a Wal-Mart that used a square sign.

If it wasn't Lowe's, then it must have been some kind of warehouse store because the ceiling is so high.

Whatever it was, I'll take a Lowe's. That's more convenient than driving to the Home Depots in Merriam and midtown.

First it was a Pace Warehouse, then a Sam's Club, then finally Wal-Mart. Lowe's didn't enter the KC market until a few years after this building became a Wal-Mart.

dangerboy wrote:First it was a Pace Warehouse, then a Sam's Club, then finally Wal-Mart. Lowe's didn't enter the KC market until a few years after this building became a Wal-Mart.

Thanks for confirming. I've never heard of Pace. What did/do they sell?

Are you serious? You're excited about Walmart coming to help Home Depot put places out of business? As a midtowner, I personally feel threatened by the thought of another Walmart in close proximity.

Not sure what you mean. Wal-Mart is already in Roeland Park. It's Lowe's that's coming -- assuming that it actually happens.

KC0KEK wrote:Thanks for confirming. I've never heard of Pace. What did/do they sell?

Pace was K-Mart's short-lived version of a Sam's Club.

KC_JAYHAWK wrote:Good news since I live close to that area. Now if they could only do something with the Mexi-Mart next door, that place is always a dump.

Mexi-Mart? Hey ... that's not very sensitive. We Roeland Park residents call it El Mercado de Wal.

My rant about the RP wal-mart, which I posted to another bulletin board not too long ago.

----- begin -----

America's worst Wal-Mart, IMHO, is good 'ol store #2490, about two blocks from my house, in an otherwise comfortable middle class suburb of Kansas City. It's a huge, windowless, battleship grey building set among more tasteful, thoughtfully designed commercial structures.

Walk through the unlandscaped parking lot, past the scattered shopping carts and vehicles of questionable roadworthiness. wait a few seconds for the ultrasonic detector to detect your presence and open the filthy door. No elderly greeter at this Wal-Mart, or as my neighbors call it, "El Mercado de Wal." More often than not, store announcements are made in Spanish, on a PA that was acoustically modeled after that of the New York subway system. Products with bilingual labels are stocked with the Spanish side facing out.

Grab one of the ancient, undersized, European-style shopping carts. How old are they? The handle, when there is one, reads "WAL-MART DISCOUNT CITY" in the large serif Western-style typeface used to identify the chain in the 1970s. Sure, one of the front wheels sticks, but don't bother working your way through the collection of carts to find one that functions properly. All the carts have sticky front wheels.

Toys can be found scattered along the dirt-encrusted floors, even far away from the toy department. A bag of Ol' Roy, kibble spilling on the floor, is on a shelf next to some Rubbermaid storage cartons. Loud rap music from two different radio stations blasts from the electronics department. Get far enough from the bass-adorned rhymes advocating the smackin' of bitches and the shootin' of crackers, and you'll hear the shrieking of a crying baby. Always.

On today's trip to El Mercado de Wal, a corner of the store was filled with the shouts of a man screaming ...

G! YO! G DAWG! WAY YAT? G! SHEEE! G! MUHFUH G! G DAWG! G! MUHFUH!

A woman took the advice of one of the rap artists, but instead of finding herself a well-endowed man, she took it upon herself to spank her toddler daughter, repeatedly and apparently with no provocation. At least that kid had her pants on, unlike a few others in the store that night.

The juxtaposition of items in the tiny book department, where the Bibles and fundamentalist Christian publications that dominate the shelves are placed aside copies of Lowrider, Dub, Us, Vibe, People en Espanol and similar magazines, is quite striking. Time? Newsweek? Automobile? Sports Illustrated? Such academic publications are way too highbrow for this Wal-Mart.

Checkout, as always, is a challenge. You could go into the very short "12 items or less" checkout, but the morbidly obese cashier, LaShantiqua, is chatting with another customer, one of her friends, about the goings on at Zion Full Gospel Tabernacle Apostolic Miracle Deliverance Pentecostal Triumph Holiness Community Temple of Faith #3. It's probably located in what used to be a hardware store somewhere in Kansas City, Kansas ... which closed not too long after Wal-Mart #2490 opened.

----- end -----

You know, I was kind of thinking there may have been a Pace there, but that would have caused some problems with my Sam's club theory. That and I couldn't remember the name.

I do know that it was a Ventures next door to PC, though!

Not that that was in question, but, you know, I've got to do something right, right?