Dix Rd actually goes by many names as it makes its way from southwest Detroit to Woodhaven, Michigan. In detroit proper, Vernor HWY turns into Dix as it travels south through Lincoln Park and Melvindale. It eventualy turns into Toledo Rd in Southgate (The city in which this bolgs strip mall is in) and then finally merges into Telegraph Rd in Woodhaven where it dissappears all together.
One thing is for certian in my travels and thats Dix sucks for businesses. Dix has a mix of national chain retail, really run down mom and pop-businesses, and then you have nearly empty strip malls like the Lincoln Park Shopping center. In this case though, despite what the sign above may read. This power center strip mall is completely empty. Yep. Completely.
This Huge Strip at the corner or Eureka and Dix/Toledo once housed many thriving buinesses such as a Best Buy, Lone Star Steakhouse, a Home Quarters (think Home Depot or Lowes), and many other smaller stores. The nail in the coffin came early for this center as Home Quarters (the entire company) went out of business it seems like right after they opened. They closed all the stores that the opened and left huge empty hulks all over the Detroit area. This occured more than 10 years ago and some buildings like this one are still empty. The smaller stores began to wither soon after. The next major blow happend when Lone Star closed most of their locations in Michgan a few years back. This one was of course one of the ones that closed. The most recent tenant to vacate was the Best Buy (pictured above). The store went to greener pastures in the nearby Southland Mall in Taylor in 2006 where a new state-of-the art store replaced the malls food court (lol). By then there were only one of two small strip stores opened and those have since closed as well.
Now, as it sits today, a monument to corporate mismanagement and the hard times that the Detroit area finds itself in.
Empty, empty, empty.
Ohhhh, wait....a diamond broker?...ohh nevermind, they forgot to take the sign down I guess.
You can see the vastness of thins empty center pictured here. The now empty Lone Star Sits in the Middle.
Empty, empty, empty.
Ohhhh, wait....a diamond broker?...ohh nevermind, they forgot to take the sign down I guess.
You can see the vastness of thins empty center pictured here. The now empty Lone Star Sits in the Middle.
Don't get your hopes up, they just left their sign up, too.
Below are pictures of the massive derelict HQ. Its one of biggest I have seen as it took me three pics to fit it in.
3 comments:
Wow, to have an entire shopping center go is quite something. A similar thing almost happened to 'The Ponds at Sterling' center at 14 and Van Dyke in Sterling Heights. They opened about 10 years ago with a KMart supercenter and an HQ. There were other stores like Staples, Radio Shack, Borders Express, as well as a bunch of outlot restaurants. Right away, the HQ closed and the KMart eventually closed. Most of the other stores hung on but very few remained. About half the restaurants shut down as well. It looked doomed but then last year, a church took over the HQ building, and the KMart was torn down in favor of a new Super WalMart. I moved away from the area so I don't know if the rest of the center has come to life, but prospects look encouraging.
Michael
I went by there the other day on the way to my mom's house and immediately thought of your blog. I used to work at the Bo-Rics in that center back in my hairdressing days. What really cheeses me off is that they tore down the Michigan Drive-In Theater to build this scrap heap. There is another HUGE abandoned HQ right next to Sam's club on Northline by the I-75 exit. Dix is a bit of a bad locale for businesses. It's more of a thoroughfare.
Well, apparently they are demolishing that whole shopping center and are building a walmart supercenter. The property is 188,000 square feet and the store is supposed to be 156,000 sq. ft. So I don't know how it will even fit. But at least we wont have to look at that eyesore anymore.
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