Southgate Meijer (Store 123) Renovation Updates

[mtburb]

Update as of May 22nd, day 71 of the renovation:

 

The new clothing area is taking shape. Floral has moved to across from groceries but still along the south actionway. The renovated bottle room area is now open for business. 95% of the GM section on the north side of the north actionway is complete and the TVs in the new electronics section have been turned on. Finally a dedicated clearance section has been set up where the books used to be located.

[mtburb]

Update as of May 25th, day 74 of the renovation:

 

Fake wood graphics have been applied to the entire wall of the bakery island as well as along the wall from the deli west and then north to just past the meat counter. Some boxes were seen in the pet are near where the tanks used to be. Finally new flooring is being applied to the northwest corner of the home section and new fake hardwood flooring (that's darker than the one that was in place) is being applied in the clothing area.

[mtburb]

Update as of May 26th, day 75 of the renovation:

Work has ended in that one corner of the garden center and it was actually to finally repaint that last bit of exterior red band.

Clothing sections are continuing their move to their new locations as the new fake hardwood flooring is laid.

These green things have been popping up over much of the GM section, new lighting perhaps?

The new canopies marking the locations of the food counters have gone up. Meat/seafood are black, produce dark green, bakery burgundy and deli dark blue.

Also noted is the new location of the greeting cards.

Finally, this Monday night work will begin on the checkouts.

[mtburb]

Update as of June 5th, day 85 of the renovation:

 

All renovation projects have that stage where everything starts to look chaotic with all sorts of things moved to random places and all sorts of unusual things start showing up on the floor. Well folks, this renovation has now officially reached this stage.

 

Starting out at the front, the checkout configuration is now as follows, west-to-east: new lanes 1-8, a large gap, then old lanes 17-32.

 

Next, I noticed what looks like a shelving unit diagram drawn onto the new tile in the actionway at the northeast corner of frozen foods. Across that aisle there was a large area that was half-torn-up with raw earth even exposed!

 

If one looks at the floor scars where the old checkouts have been taken out, one may notice the original floor tile (turquoise and a darker black)!

 

The new pharmacy is now visible to the general public though it is not yet open.

 

Work has now expanded to aisles 11-13, aisle 12 right now could easily pass off for being an actionway if it wasn't for the signs. Baking supplies and canned foods are currently in the center of the north actionway.

[mtburb]

Update as of June 11th, day 91 of the renovation:

 

New lanes 9-16 have been put up, so that leaves just old lanes 17-32.

 

The new pharmacy is now open though the temporary pharmacy is still standing.

 

In the grocery section aisles 11-15 have been extended and aisles 9-10 are currently being extended. Aisles 1-2 (frozen foods) have been partially extended as well.

[mtburb]

Update as of June 12th, day 92 of the renovation:

The temporary pharmacy is being demolished and old lanes 17-24 have been removed along with their floor being torn into bare concrete.

There was also some work going on in produce as well as the floor being torn into bare concrete at the west end of aisle 9 as well as in the dairy alcove seeping into aisle 15.

[mtburb]

Update as of June 23rd, day 103 of the renovation:

 

With the number of days passed since this renovation began now officially in the triple digits and with less than a month to go before the grand reopening, a lot has been done as this renovation starts wrapping up.

 

First, all of the new checkouts are in, except lane 12 for some reason, but including new self-scan lanes 33 and 34 that haven't yet received their signs.

 

New large beige-and-wood structures have appeared in the clothing area, most likely dressing rooms, but perhaps one of them will also contain that Sketchers area the renovated Allen Park Meijer has?

 

All of the grocery aisles in the frozen foods area and from 6 on up have been extended and in full service. Between the extended aisles, new wine shelving is taking shape. The new bottled water shelves look a lot like they came from a warehouse. I initially thought that there would be a center aisle perpendicular to the north-south actionways that would divide the aisles in half like is done at the Flat Rock Meijer, but that isn't the case.

 

Interestingly enough, for now, the old grocery aisle signs are still in place, but have been changed to denote new locations of certain items. Even stranger, they haven't moved one bit, so now they are either off-center over some aisles (which have moved a bit) or are even over shelving units separating aisles.

 

The exposed bare concrete between frozen foods and the meat island tubs seems to have rusted. Speaking of bare concrete, the aisle separating the new locations for hardware and auto supplies still hasn't received new flooring!

 

I've noticed that the customer service desk has changed to a wood finish. Additionally, another Freestyle has popped up in the Fountain Express area.

 

Finally, the entire store is now brighter than it ever has been.

 

Actual final note: the bottle return area was closed today.

[mtburb]

Finishing updates as of June 30th, day 110 of the renovation:

 

Starting outside, the pharmacy sign over the window that dated back to the 1994 opening was removed and replaced with a version in a different lower-case font. The cart corral and parking lot zone signs have also been replaced.

 

Now let's go inside. New directional, department and grocery aisle signs have gone up. Only two departments (sporting goods and hardware, apparently renamed "do it yourself") had yet to receive permanent signs during my visit. The directional and grocery signs are white-on-dark blue, the department signs are inverted.

 

One thing to note is that in MOST instances, if the official department name is too long to fit onto the outer wall, then it gets a standalone sign along the actionway, others have no actionway signage. This does not apply in the center of the sales floor. Cost-saving measures perhaps?

 

The long-rumored Skechers kiosk has made an appearance in the northeast corner of the clothing area. Speaking of which, it's new look now really recreates the atmosphere of one of those higher-end New York City department stores, featuring towering kiosks such as that Skechers one and another one containing logos of Detroit-area collegiate and professional sports teams.

 

For some reason the milk doors in dairy still have their old small product type signs from 2005.

 

The new signs officially confirm that there are 14 aisles compared to the former 15. This is due to the widening of the alcohol aisle by adding perpendicular wine shelving.

 

One of the frozen food cases was completely empty. A large area of the western end of produce was cleared off for leftover work.

 

New black (actually blue)-and-white photos have gone up along the front concourse. One set is labeled "Our Story" which is obviously an abridged history of Meijer itself, the other features various photos of children riding Sandy pony machines at various Meijer stores.

 

Final notes: in addition to the new checkouts themselves still not installed and lane 12 still missing entirely (though lanes 33 and 34 have finally received their signs), Store 123 is still listed on the grand opening and remodel page on Meijer's website, which ironically can't even be accessed from Meijer's homepage. This officially means that the renovation isn't complete yet. With much accomplished, I expect a grand reopening to take place within the next couple weeks and hopefully I'll make it there and doing exactly that will provide a fitting "the end" for this thread.

[mtburb]

Finishing updates as of July 9th, day 119 of the renovation.

 

The only change from the last update is that the work in the produce area is completed. However, the new lane 14 sign now has a couple of express stickers from one of the old lane signs affixed to it for some reason!

 

Additionally, the old lanes are still there, there is still no new lane 12 and the two departments that still had temporary signs last time I visited still have temporary signs.

 

And finally, the very bottom of the wall facing produce running between the entrance to Subway and the start of the deli counter looks very, very disgusting.

 

These are what needs addressing before the grand reopening takes place allowing the Southgate Meijer to go fist-a-cuffs with the Kroger Marketplace rising out of the shell of the old Super Kmart across Fort Street.

[RustTown]

Isn't this spam?  Can you not do this.  Thanks.

[mtburb]

Finishing updates as of July 14th, day 124 of the renovation:

 

The only update really is that the new checkout belts are finally being added. So far it's been done up to lane 14. This also means that lane 12 is back!

 

There are two notes though:

 

1. The full-size "self-scan" lanes have registers, is this a sign of things to come?

2. The new flooring already is starting to look worn and in some parts inconsistent, for example near the east end of some grocery aisles you can clearly see where they used to end and where the old actionway used to be located.

[mtburb]

Final update as of August 6th, day 147 (and the final day) of the renovation:

The grand reopening was a pretty neat experience. There were plenty of activities to do, a lot more lines were open than normal and there were even personalities from radio station WRIF.

The Southgate Meijer is now all-out ready to go one-on-one with a forthcoming Kroger Marketplace that continues taking shape right across Fort Street in the former Super Kmart building.

But on a sad note, this post is also an official indicator that no further replies will be made in this thread, but it will be kept for historical purposes.

Thanks for turning to this thread for the latest updates for the past 147 days!