Retail Forever

WEIS #138 Opened:  1990s Address:   1400 Stony Battery Rd Photographed:  August 2021 Welcome back. Today is the one-year anniversary of the Willow Street Kmart closure :(. For this week and the next, we've got two Lancaster County Weis stores to take a look at, both of which are in West Hempfield Township. (This is the first one, Columbia is the second). Weis #138, the precursor for superstores like #17 on Fruitville Pike, opened in late 1995 or early 1996. At the time of its opening, Weis #138 featured no tower entrance like it does today. Instead, a large, nondescript, standalone store with a "sloping, green-topped roof covering the porch in its middle" (wording from archived copy of http://weisproject.com/store_detail.php?store=138 ). A Weis Gas-N-Go was later added. Original appearance of Weis #138 (Photo from The Weis Project) Weis Gas 'N Go

CVS #1675 Opened:  1991 Address:   1278 Millersville Pike Photographed:  October 2021 Now that we've finished our excursion into Baltimore County, Maryland, we're back up in Lancaster, up next, we're headed up to Harrisburg. CVS #1675, another store with roots as Rea & Derick, opened its doors on August 14, 1962 as said Rea & Derick. In 1991, with all the other Rea & Dericks, it was converted to CVS. Before exterior signage update (Photo by joshaustin610 on Flickr)

GIANT #349 Opened:  2007 Address:   3530 Sugarloaf Pkwy Photographed:  September 2021 Welcome to our second and final grocery store post from the Frederick area. Up next, we're headed back up to Lancaster for Weis #138. Giant #349, a 56,657 sq. ft. supermarket at the Villages at Urbana shopping center in Frederick (to be more specific, Urbana) opened on March 2, 2007, under the chain's Super Giant banner. When the Super Giant concept was phased out in 2010, this store was rebranded as a regular Giant.

RITE AID #476 Opened:  1978? Address:   3463 Sweet Air Rd Photographed:  October 2021 After our brief intermission from drugstores last week to take a peek at two Tom's stores, but this week, we're back in Maryland for one more drugstore -- Former Rite Aid #476 (Now a Walgreens). Rite Aid #476 was one of over 1,100 Rite Aid stores to be converted to Walgreens in summer 2019. I can't seem to find out when Rite Aid first opened (1978, perhaps, with the neighboring Safeway?), although I can confirm that Walgreens #19043 opened here in August, 2019.  Rite Aid #476 during the remodel to Walgreens (Google Maps Streetview) (Google Maps Streetview)

GIANT EAGLE #1842 Opened:  2002 Address:  1305 W. 7th St Photographed:  September 2021 Welcome to the first of two Frederick-Area supermarket posts, and probably the more interesting one. One of just two Giant Eagle stores in Maryland (the other is also in Frederick), this store has quite an interesting history, with the building originally housing a Country Market. I'm unsure of when Country Market opened, although I do know that Giant Eagle opened on February 9, 2002, the same day as the chain's other Marylandian stores (all of which were formerly Country Market). On June 28, 2007, a Texaco adjacent to the rest of the shopping center was converted to one of Giant Eagle's own GetGo convenience stores. GetGo #3843 (Google Maps Streetview)