06.03.09

June, 2009. Well look what I stumbled upon driving through Vermont, I had been in Montpelier and was driving to Barre to visit the former glorious Grand Union that now is divided into 2 retail stores. The shopping center is called Ames Plaza, this sign was in excellent condition, so much so that it would give you the impression that Ames was still open for business. However once you drive over to that side of the shopping center, it clearly shows NO ONE, goes over there or drives over there! Grass was growing up through the black top everywhere. The letter A sadly has been damaged and worse yet, the Dollar Tree store is utilizing Ames carriages as their shopping carts. Now this would be fine except they have scared them and put stickers with their store logo on them.
The interior of the store was very impressive, marketing and graphics still remain hanging, and lots of fixtures are still scattered about. One of the pictures show allot of reflection, however I was impressed with the fixture that said "Ames Area Rugs" and needed to capture that. The door decals are still in fairly good shape after all this time, and the rear of the shopping center was clean and spotless, no dumping, graffiti or old fixtures of any kind. This location is on Route 302 in Berlin, VT. If anyone is in the area it's defiantly worth a look, and with all those fixtures and graphics inside, it's to bad they don't offer a fixture sale to clean the space out!!

Photos by: <a href="http://www.amesfanclub.com/forum/member.php?action=viewpro&member=gu4ever">gu4ever</a>