T-Minus Five Weeks to Sprouts!

Today's post highlights Shelby County, TN, retail.

It's been several weeks now since our last check-in at the former S Perkins Seessel's/Schnucks/Kroger, so now's as good a time as any to take an updated look at how construction is progressing on what will become the Memphis area's third Sprouts Farmers Market! This post actually comprises photos taken on three separate trips by the store, on April 23rd, May 20th, and just last week, by l_dawg2000. Apologies for holding onto these so long, but hopefully they're still timely enough for you guys!

Beginning in chronological order with the April 23rd, 2017, photos, here we're taking a wide view of the storefront, where you can see the new entrance gable proudly rising above the rest of the building, as well as future windows/entrances being framed out.

A second storefront view, this one angled from the other direction, shows the parking lot remains fenced off, with plenty of those storage crates sitting in it. It's very likely interior work was proceeding simultaneously by this point. Now that the opening is nearer, work is likely focusing inside exclusively.

This right-side view, taken from across the tracks, shows Sprouts isn't altering too much over here: not that there was much to see over here anyway, haha! I actually kinda expected them to spruce up this view a little, but it appears it must not have been broken since they're not fixing it... 

Taking a look at the rear now from the same road as the last pic, it looks like Sprouts has constructed a new backroom area at the very back right corner of the store: either that, or simply demolished the existing one and rebuilt it identically, like they did with that wide gray column at the front right corner of the store.

Moving on to the May 20th photos now, with this one a near spot-on comparison shot to the one exactly three photos above. For a minute there I thought the old Seessel's roadside sign frame had been removed, but thankfully it's just hidden behind that tree :P

A closer look reveals Sprouts is adding their faux façade at this point. You can see that, in most areas, it will raise above the height of the rest of the building (matching the height of that gray column), giving the illusion of a taller space. It will also drastically reduce the amount of brick visible on the building, for better or for worse...

That faux façade continues around the front left corner, before suddenly dropping off back to the true building height, where a mural will be painted. The MSRB showed you this in a rendering courtesy of The Commercial Appeal in an earlier post covering this store's construction.

Two additional "coming soon" signs had joined the construction company's one by this visit. These are a bit more tailored to the company's promotional identity (that is to say, they're more advertisement-like). The right one, seen best here, reads, "Coming Soon!"...

...while the left one, seen from afar in this overview photo of the entire store, reads "Now Hiring" and includes a phone number (conveniently blocked by that telephone pole!) for potential employees to call.

Fast-forward to early June, and those two signs inexplicably disappear! However, the building has clearly gained more, with the new faux façade all but completely painted and looking ready to go. It's sorta hard to tell, however, just which windows/entrances will be real and which will be fake...

Another comparison shot to the other two mentioned earlier in this post shows, once again, the storefront as viewed from across the street (albeit in black and white, to avoid bad sun glare!). This time, those storage crates appear to have either moved elsewhere or been removed entirely, which is a testament to how ready this store must be for its rapidly approaching grand opening!

This view reveals those two relatively new "coming soon" signs are indeed still at the site after all, but have been turned over for some reason: you can see them on the right of the photo. (Perhaps the recent powerful storm is to blame for that; thankfully, the remaining few hundred without power - down from a total in the upper hundreds of thousands - are expected to get that restored today!)

Finally, l_dawg's final photo of the three batches featured today is a rather cool view, with the to-be-Sprouts framed by some trees in a parking lot across the intersection. I've gotta say, this store is shaping up to look pretty classy, especially with that all-glass gable up top! :)

In case you missed it, the Memphis Business Journal recently announced the opening date for this store: Wednesday, July 12th, 2017 at 7AM, meaning that this post officially marks the start of the five-week countdown (as the title implies). I'm eager to see how the final project turns out - as are a bunch of East Memphians, I'd imagine! l_dawg2000 may stop by again before the grand opening, and if he does, be sure to watch out for those photos to be posted here on the blog. I'm sure he plans to visit the store once it opens as well, but I won't blame him if he saves photos he takes at that time for his flickr account, haha! As for me, I'd like to see the store too, but can't guarantee I'll make it (or that I'd want to make it, for that matter, what with it being such a small store!) to the grand opening. But whenever I do find the time to go, I plan on posting whatever photos I'm able to get here on the blog.

Until then, that's what's going on with the former "Baby Kroger" in East Memphis. Stick around for more from this store in the future, and have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell