Kmart Miami (#3074)
Store Information:
Official Name: Kmart Miami
Address: 14091 SW 88th St suite 200, Miami, FL 33186
Status as of Publication: Open but downsized. Located in old garden center. No closure plans.
Okay, I did it. I went to Miami and photographed the last Kmart in the mainland United States (my first Kmart visit, since I’m thirteen). Now, this Kmart is not full-size. When the original store closed, the remains moved into the old garden center. To get an idea of what has changed here in the last four to five years, I would read AFB’s tour of what this store looked like before it downsized. This post will be the first installment of Step Back in Time, my two-part series on old big-box stores (although this store isn’t a big box anymore).
Now, let’s jump right into this Dollar General-sized Kmart.
Actually, I think it’s smaller than Dollar General.
Now that we’re done with the photos I took of the store, we’ll look at some souvenirs I got there.
Finally, we’ll look at some Google Earth aerial photos.
Here’s the Historic Aerials link to see older aerials.
I have known about this store for over a year, and I never thought I would get to go see it. Then, just last Sunday, I got to go to Miami and photograph it. While this store isn’t what the Kmarts of the 70s and 80s were like, it’s still Kmart, and that’s good enough for me. This store is one of three left in the world. The other two are in the Tutu Park Mall in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Tamuning, Guam (somehow, those two are still full-size stores). While Kmart in the U.S. is almost gone, Kmart Australia, which is owned by a different company than the American Kmarts, is still going strong, so at least the Kmart name will still exist if Transformco (the company that owns the American Kmarts) decides to close the three remaining stores. The Kmart website also still works and can be accessed at kmart.com.
I will return the day after tomorrow with part two of Step Back in Time. While you’re waiting, check out my Adventures page.
As always,
Mr. Rejoice Retail
Missing Sunoco, Forgotten Publix, StepBack In Time Kmart, your blog is the Mystery Channel of retail💪
Doesn’t look like the giant Kmart I remember from my childhood in Connecticut. What a weird store! Glad you got to see it anyway before it closed but definitely not representative of the vast Kmarts of “me youth”.
While I’m glad you got to visit a Kmart, this is a sad shell of a Kmart – it’s nothing like the old full-sized stores that were once in every town. Your post also confirms a rumor that popped up recently that this store downsized even more. When this store first downsized a few years ago, it comprised the garden center jut-out and then had a pass-through into a small portion of the main building right behind that. The part in the main building comprised the HBA, toys, and other hardgoods departments, with the garden center home to mostly clothes. Now in only the garden center, this store is even smaller and sadder, and I really don’t know why it’s still open unless the rumor is true that Kmart’s lease requires the store to remain operational in some form until its expires. I don’t even know who’s supplying this store anymore, as Kmart and Sears’s central supply chain is gone.
I’d have to imagine the large bag you got is a product of this store burning through old stock of bags, as those use the design of the last Kmart bags I ever received in the late 2010’s. I can’t imagine Kmart is taking the effort to print new custom ones. The receipt paper is the same old paper I remember, but the receipt itself looks different as I believe this store moved over to a self-contained new register system that’s not linked to anything anymore. It’s a shame that Kmart has come to this – another company ruined by greed.
I thought that the store looked bigger in the videos! I never saw that rumor, but I thought that the back wall seemed a bit too clean to have been from the original downsize.
Just before I walked inside the store, someone rushed out carrying several of those large bags, so at least they’re getting a little bit of business.
To answer your supply question, I believe this Kmart is supplied by Topco Associates. I saw a few Topco brands scattered around the store.
I may figure out a way to visit the U/S Virgin Islands store someday. Thanks for reading, AFB! Having you comment on my website is an honor.
Those shopping carts are your standard-issue Technibilt model 3440, from either 2010 or 2011. These ones were badly resprayed in that black color; you can see the original light grey powder coating where the black paint has worn off. They would have been left over from when the store was still full sized.
Thanks for that information! I couldn’t find a date code on the carts, but that is probably because I didn’t want to be caught kneeling underneath the carts by one of the employees. I saw some kind of stamp right where the date would be on a standard Publix cart, but Publix doesn’t use Technibilt-branded carts anymore, so that stamp may have been for something else.
The Technibilt info stickers were on the left rear pillar, but were certainly sprayed over on these, so they would be of no help here.
A TB unit of this age would not have had a date stamp on the front plate; just the company name and plant location (Newton, N.C.).
Publix does still use Technibilt carts, however they bear the Wanzl name, as parent company Wanzl changed the name about six years ago.
That’s good to know. Do you have any idea what Publix was doing with those large plastic carts 10-11 years ago? I remember seeing a post on MFR once that included those.
I cannot say for certain, but my guess is they were a test fleet to gauge how well they would hold up, and to see how customers would receive them. It does not seem like they were received well as they were already gone by 2018, replaced with their standard wire fare. It was featured in AFB’s post on the Jupiter, FL Publix.