Southeast Michigan Retail: Motor City Retail History

This post will look at retail in Wyandotte, Wayne County, MI.   Kroger Michigan Division #312 / Arbor Drugs #29 / CVS #8029 2025 Fort Street, Wyandotte, MI Driving distance and time from downtown Detroit: 14.9 miles, approx. 21 minutes This is the next part in a series of posts chronicling the relocation history of the tenants of 14155 Eureka Road in Southgate . Today's post brings us to where the Kroger that originally occupied that building had relocated from...and that brings us to a background on the history of this Wyandotte building. Kroger #312 grand opening ad in the June 20, 1957 Southgate Sentinel. (credit: Downriver History & Facts ) Kroger #312 was Wyandotte's most recent Kroger to open on June 26, 1957, and was located in the city's fast-growing West End at the southeast corner of Fort Street and Ford Avenue. For those of you unfamiliar with the area, Ford Avenue is the easternmost portion of Northline Road, and yet many people, including MDOT and the Wayne...

The following is a SMR:MCRH Contributor Post. Kroger Cincinnati/Dayton Division #729 700 Spinning Road, Dayton, OH Driving distance and time from downtown Detroit: 215 miles, approx. 3 hours 25 minutes   Today I am introducing a new feature here on Southeast Michigan Retail called "Beyond Southeast Michigan". In "Beyond Southeast Michigan", you will virtually visit stores located outside of Southeast Michigan. For our first installment of  "Beyond Southeast Michigan", we will be looking at not only one of the last operational intact greenhouse Kroger stores (even though it originally didn't open as one)...but also the last Kroger store operating with Bauhaus decor! Located in Dayton, OH, this Kroger opened on December 17, 1965, as the first component of the Spinning Plaza shopping center, and was expanded into a greenhouse store, the first in the Dayton area, reopening from that expansion on November 5, 1978 , and has remained unchanged since. It was a...

The following is (mostly) a SMR:MCRH Contributor Post.   This post will look at retail in Southgate, Wayne County, MI.   Kroger Michigan Division #524 / Family Foodland #5524 / Big Lots #1425 14155 Eureka Road, Southgate, MI Driving distance and time from downtown Detroit: 15.1 miles, approx. 22 minutes This Kroger store originally opened in 1981 as the second Kroger-bannered grocery store to operate within the city of Southgate, and the first of two greenhouse-styled Kroger stores to open in the Downriver suburbs that year. A concrete wall separating the back of the property from adjacent homes on Balsam and Nancy Streets abruptly exploded on June 14, 1984 , and almost a month later, it was announced that the store would close on July 21, 1984 , along with 69 other southeastern Michigan Kroger stores, due to a protracted labor strike. It should be noted that the mid-1980s were a rough period for Kroger regarding labor disputes. Elsewhere in the country, the chain closed a...