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Centerpointe Mall to get huge makeover (again)

GRDadof3

By GRDadof3
in Grand Rapids

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tamias6 Town

tamias6

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The article states it is a 19 acre site they are looking at, so I imagine it will either include the parcel to the right (East) or part of the parcels to the North. The square you have outlined is only 10.46 acres. I'm thinking it might take up part of both parcels, as a 165,000 square foot store (400' x 400') would take up that whole square and then some! :o (edit, sorry no it wouldn't, that square is about 600 x 700)

I think it's great that they are looking at reusing this site, vs. looking at a greenfield site somewhere (like all that open land along Patterson).

A Menard's parking lot is quite small compared those at Home Depot and Lowe's. A good example of this is the Alpine Ave. Menard's. That location is massive. Yet it's parking lot is no bigger than that found at an average sized supermarket.

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Allison Slater Town

Allison Slater

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The Menards employees take you to the location because they want to ensure you find that location alright instead of wandering around missing it. (You'd be surprised how many people can't handle the easiest of directions!) I actually used to work for Menards at one time and they are VERY focused on customer service, moreso than any other store I've ever seen. Go into any Menards, walk by an employee, and they will greet you and ask if they can help you. (If they don't, they aren't doing their job and could get in trouble.) They don't just "put the customer first" they are trained to go out of their way to make sure the customer is first.

As for the Eastbrook store (yes, I still call it Eastbrook.), that's one of their smaller stores and I believe it was mostly used as a sort of clearance center. They were really cramped for space there.

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Veloise City

Veloise

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The Menards employees take you to the location because they want to ensure you find that location alright instead of wandering around missing it. ...

Yeahbut...

...when I first moved here I was suffering a torn ACL. Dropped in to pick up a widget. The male clerk with the long blond hair practically took off running across the store, turning corners and heading down aisles out of sight. (Hint: if the customer is limping and has a bandaged knee, you can outrun him/her. But why?)

Proper customer service would be to say something like, "it's on the opposite wall, under the sign that says WIDGETS. I'll walk you over there." This fellow may have tersely said "follow me," before he poured it on, but it was not clear that we were going on a nature hike.

Usually a customer has a list, and after locating the gizmo that's in the immediate vicinity, has plans to pick up a left-handed veeblefetzer as well. Sometimes I will ascertain where the next item might be so I can plan my route or time, rather than search for the item or an aproned helper. Walking briskly clear across the store is just not helpful.

If I were managing that place, I'd create floor plans with maps showing the general location of things (which is different from all the other Menardses because it's so small). I'd place a stack of them at every entrance, and a pedestal with a map every couple of endcaps. And I'd train the staff to hand the customer off to an associate in the next department.

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tamias6 Town

tamias6

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Menard's does have allot of things Lowe's and Home Depot do not. However I don't shop there as much as the other two home centers because the store layout is very hard to navigate. Additionally the store layout is a format called a one way labyrinth. Other store's like Lowe's, Best Buy, Toys R Us, and Circuit City are one way labyrinths as well. Plus this format is great for discouraging shoplifters. But at Menard's there is something about the metal barriers defining that labyrinth and the checkout lanes that really make me feel like a cow being herded through a stockade.

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Allison Slater Town

Allison Slater

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the store layout is very hard to navigate

You're telling me. Try stocking items from the back onto shelves in that place for a department who's products you know nothing about. "Okay this is a... thing. Things go next to..... doodads?" Paint, Primer, Wax, whatever the other stuff it was I stocked... it was all liquid in a heavy bucket to me.

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Veloise City

Veloise

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Tslater, since you are former Menerd's team member, can you solve this mystery for me? Why is Menard's selling groceries, movies, and other stuff one would find at Meijer? I thought Menard's is a home improvment store....Isn't it?

I'm not Tony, but...

Profit.

Saw an article about Home Depot where it discussed them adding coolers of pop and snack foods. As if to illustrate the point, here came a worker (Carhart's, steel-toed shoes) loaded up with widgets...slid open the cooler and grabbed a Coke.

Fabric stores sell ready-made clothing. Fred has plumbing parts and a few electrical cords. Office supply places have tubs of candy and game software. Menards and the like also sell items of dubious integrity when it comes to "home improvement" (lawn decorations and holiday blow-ups and those godawful Christmas symphony light sychronization sets).

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Allison Slater Town

Allison Slater

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I believe the official answer was "for convenience to the customer" though I think Veloise's response is a lot more on the target. Although, a lot of those things Menards offered were pretty cheap, especially when they were on sale. Not only for the customers, even, but for the employees as well. We had vending machines in our break area. I spent a LOT of money on those. So you know what I did? I bought a large bag of M&Ms at the front counter that were on sale, with my 10% discount, and ate those instead. Company still made money. ;p (And then I suffered the violently opening bag syndrome and spent my entire break time cleaning M&Ms off the floor instead of eating. <<)

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amylynne Whistle-Stop

amylynne

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the store layout is very hard to navigate.

My husband and I have found this to be the case at most of the big box home improvement stores. If we just want to pick up a few things we end up there for way too long because it's hard to find exactly what you want and with some things, like utility knives, they have them in multiple departments and you have to visit all of them to compare different ones. Plus we've had trouble with employees not even knowing where something might be. After one too many fights in the middle of Home Depot we decided that if possible we would do all shopping at our neighborhood Rylee's Ace hardware. It's smaller and for the most part the employees are pretty knowledgable. Obviously there will still be times that we have to visit the big stores, but for the sake of our sanity and our marriage we're sticking with the smaller stores.

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  • 4 years later...
jthrasher Whistle-Stop

jthrasher

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I realize this topic is 5 years old but with all the construction going on over at Centerpoint, I wondered what it all was. The old Klingmans has been torn down and there is a new building where I think the restaurant was. Anybody have any info on what's going on? I can't imagine it has to do with this original thread after 5 years could it?

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andrew.w Hamlet

andrew.w

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Does the de- mailing begin once these out buildings are complete?

That would makes sense. It sounds like they are planing to build new spaces for as many of the existing tenants as possible so that can clear out the existing mall for renovation.

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