I know this won't matter much to 99.9% of you, but I just wanted to vent that a developer plans to knock down the Super Flea market in my area and build a Lowes. I've been going to this flea market since I was a kid. Most of my GPK collection has come directly from dealers at this place. To this day, I still bring my son there 2-3 weekends a month to buy Pokemon, G1 transformers, etc.
The developer plans on relocating the flea market, but changing it to a farmer's market where there will be strict rules on what dealers can sell. It just won't be the same. I feel like a huge part of my youth is being thrown away. I have such fond memories of this place.
Anyways, just felt like sharing with you guys. Has this happened to anyone else? Classic Americana being knocked down and replaced by corporate greed which the government helps fund. Thanks for stepping on the little guys!
The developer plans on relocating the flea market, but changing it to a farmer's market where there will be strict rules on what dealers can sell. It just won't be the same. I feel like a huge part of my youth is being thrown away. I have such fond memories of this place.
Anyways, just felt like sharing with you guys. Has this happened to anyone else? Classic Americana being knocked down and replaced by corporate greed which the government helps fund. Thanks for stepping on the little guys!
They're doing the same thing with my beloved American Mall and turning it into a huge parking lot in favor of a movie theater (which opened in 2006, and is the only one where I live, aside from a discount theater on the other side of town) and a pizza restaurant that were constructed nearby.
The last time I went into the American Mall, it was January 2006. My sister had to buy something in a store called "Butterfly Love", which sold homemade incense, rock memorabillia, and the like. Four years before then, it had gotten to a point where the mall was about to "jump the shark", whereas in the spring of 2002, a mega-pharmacy franchise called "Phar-Mor" announced that it was going out of business nationwide, closing all 73 of its remaining stores that included the one located in the mall.
In 2004, two years after the store closed, that's when I found out there wasn't many people shopping in the store, and it was like a ghost town. A lot of people were turning to another mall several miles away, and the Andersons would be the only one that would see ample business. A year later, a furniture store located in the mall called "The Home Store" announced they would be going out of business, causing the downfall to be even worse. That would cause certain mall businesses to re-locate (Butterfly Love, for example, relocated to downtown Lima and Buffalo Wild Wings, relocated to a newly constructed building on Allentown Rd. about one or two minutes away from the about-to-be abandoned mall) and in 2008, one of its anchor stores, Value City, to go out of business, since their only entrance was inside the mall. After the closure of Value City, The Andersons closed off their mall entrance, and were left as the last business standing among the American Mall. However, that store remained in business until November 2009, leaving the American Mall to become totally shuttered and label-scarred until there would be someone to raze it, transforming it into nothing but a gigantic ocean of a parking lot.
It's sad to hear about the flea market you knew and loved get torn down like my beloved American Mall is about to.
The last time I went into the American Mall, it was January 2006. My sister had to buy something in a store called "Butterfly Love", which sold homemade incense, rock memorabillia, and the like. Four years before then, it had gotten to a point where the mall was about to "jump the shark", whereas in the spring of 2002, a mega-pharmacy franchise called "Phar-Mor" announced that it was going out of business nationwide, closing all 73 of its remaining stores that included the one located in the mall.
In 2004, two years after the store closed, that's when I found out there wasn't many people shopping in the store, and it was like a ghost town. A lot of people were turning to another mall several miles away, and the Andersons would be the only one that would see ample business. A year later, a furniture store located in the mall called "The Home Store" announced they would be going out of business, causing the downfall to be even worse. That would cause certain mall businesses to re-locate (Butterfly Love, for example, relocated to downtown Lima and Buffalo Wild Wings, relocated to a newly constructed building on Allentown Rd. about one or two minutes away from the about-to-be abandoned mall) and in 2008, one of its anchor stores, Value City, to go out of business, since their only entrance was inside the mall. After the closure of Value City, The Andersons closed off their mall entrance, and were left as the last business standing among the American Mall. However, that store remained in business until November 2009, leaving the American Mall to become totally shuttered and label-scarred until there would be someone to raze it, transforming it into nothing but a gigantic ocean of a parking lot.
It's sad to hear about the flea market you knew and loved get torn down like my beloved American Mall is about to.