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| Today's post highlights DeSoto County, MS, retail. |
I've covered it before, and now I'm covering it again: indeed, today's post is another featuring the progress at the new Hernando, MS, Kroger Marketplace. A little over one year since its groundbreaking, the store is now officially set to open just next week - Wednesday, September 14th, 2016.
Local media was offered a tour of the store this past week, and all of the pictures in this post come from those sources, each credited in the photo captions. I'm using these photos to give you a sneak peek of the neat features awaiting customers once the store opens, but if you want a more comprehensive overview of what a Marketplace store is like, I invite you to check out
my most recent post, on a Kroger Marketplace in Ohio.
Inside, some of the special additions alongside the traditional deli and bakery are a cheese shop, bistro, and sushi bar.
Other non-traditional Kroger features include aisles of toys, shoes, apparel, and kitchenware.
The new store also boasts a greatly expanded natural foods selection, and has space set aside for ClickList, Kroger's online ordering/in-store pickup feature. Additionally, as you can see from the last photo above, the store features
Kroger's Marketplace décor (bottom of linked post), and unlike Mansfield, all signs look to be distinctly Marketplace (
instead of a few bountiful/2012).
Perhaps of most excitement to local residents is the inclusion of Hernando's first Starbucks - that's Mayor Chip Johnson showing off his cup of coffee in the top picture above. Other noteworthy local figures, as well as Kroger Delta Division spokesperson Teresa Dickerson (center) and store manager Rickey Hayles (far right), fill out the bottom photo. Hayles,
in a DeSoto Times-Tribune article, says, "This is a Cadillac we're bringing to Hernando. Anything you could possibly want is inside these four walls." On that note, it's worth mentioning that the features highlighted in this post are only the tip of the iceberg as far as what this store has to offer.
The
Memphis Business Journal got a truly spectacular photo tour of the store as well; however, their images are protected, so I could not download them and share them with you in this post. I can respect that, and will instead
link you to their slideshow, and encourage you to check it out. I just had to include these last two pics, though! Above is the "Kroger Loves Hernando" message along the front end, and below, a close-up of the storefront, proudly displaying "2380," the digits that comprise its long-standing address along Mount Pleasant Road. (The new store is actually closer to East Parkway and Commerce Street than Mount Pleasant, but it retains the address all the same.)
As the MBJ caption under the "Kroger Loves Hernando" picture notes, this store will eventually feature a local mural as well; it is my hope that the historical photos and other local flair lining the walls of the existing store will also make it into the new Marketplace, or at least be salvaged from the impending demolition. For much, much more on this store's evolution, please feel free to check out my flickr album "To the Marketplace: Hdo Kroger Project"
here, where you'll find detailed documentation of this store's construction, including weekly photo updates beginning with the groundbreaking, straight from the original press announcement onward. Additionally,
l_dawg2000 has an album of his own covering this, which I also encourage you to check out
here.
In the previously-mentioned and linked
DTT article (also accessible from the above photo caption), Hayles notes that Kroger chose Hernando for Mississippi and the Memphis metropolitan area's first Marketplace location "due to population growth populations [likely in relation to nearby I-269 construction], but more importantly to reward the people of Hernando for being patient while other stores received facelifts and expansions." Indeed, within DeSoto County alone, Kroger has been updating all other stores over the past several years -
first Olive Branch in 2012;
then Southaven (Goodman/Getwell) in early 2013;
Horn Lake (former Schnucks, Goodman/Horn Lake Rd.) in late 2013;
the beloved Bauhaus store in Southaven (greenhouse, Stateline Rd.), after a short break from remodeling locally, in late 2014; and finally,
the other Horn Lake store (Interstate Blvd./Goodman) in early 2015 - and all the while,
l_dawg2000 has been super busy documenting all of these remodels Hernando has been left alone with its outdated
millennium décor (not that that's a complaint to retail fans!). I must add the caveat to this that Kroger likely chose Hernando foremost because the existing store was adjacent to a large swath of undeveloped land, ripe for use. But the other reasons seem to be sound as well, and certainly residents are excited, no matter which reason brought the store to town.
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| The new storefront as it appeared on September 2nd, 2016. All signage has been installed, and the blue fabric-covered fencing has been placed as a safety border for when demolition of the existing store, seen on the right edge of the photo, takes place. |
Again, Hernando's new Kroger Marketplace opens to the public on September 14th, with demolition of the existing store and relocation of the fuel center to follow soon thereafter. The entire project is slated for completion sometime around November, and until it's over you can count on continued weekly updates over at
my flickr account!
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Now for some quick housekeeping before I conclude this post... as you are likely aware, I've been prone to taking month-long breaks from blogging in the past (despite my commitment to one post per month). October will see another drought on that front, so apologies if any of you were hoping for new content between now and the Thanksgiving time period! (It's no coincidence, as I'm sure you're also aware, that many of my posts occur around holiday breaks.) If you're that desperate for new content to go up on the blog during this time, please feel free to submit posts of your own (with or without pictures) to midsouthretailblog [at] gmail [dot] com, and I'll get around to them ASAP! :)
Until next time, then... that's what's going on in Hernando and on the blog. Hope you've enjoyed your Labor Day weekend, and as always, have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!
Retail Retell
