Multiple Sam's Club Stores to close

marshd1000
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Re: Multiple Sam's Club Stores to close

Post by marshd1000 »

Brian Lutz wrote: October 1st, 2021, 10:19 am Costco has filed preliminary plans with the City of Seattle to open a new store in the former Sams Club location on Aurora Avenue:

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/new ... KmOEdl4Slg

Meanwhile the former Sam's Club in Renton continues to sit vacant, although I don't think Costco would have any interest in that site unless they wanted it to replace their Tukwila store (which is built in a large converted warehouse and is reportedly the largest Costco in the world, but tends to have severe parking shortages.)
. I live up the hill from the Renton Sam’s Club. I’m not sure but I think Amazon is leasing that warehouse. I think I see Amazon vans parked in the lot!
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Re: Multiple Sam's Club Stores to close

Post by babs »

Brian Lutz wrote: October 1st, 2021, 10:19 am Costco has filed preliminary plans with the City of Seattle to open a new store in the former Sams Club location on Aurora Avenue:

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/new ... KmOEdl4Slg

Meanwhile the former Sam's Club in Renton continues to sit vacant, although I don't think Costco would have any interest in that site unless they wanted it to replace their Tukwila store (which is built in a large converted warehouse and is reportedly the largest Costco in the world, but tends to have severe parking shortages.)
The largest Costco is in Salt Lake City but it's a combo unit if a regular store with a Business store. The largest pure Costco is in Hillsboro, Oregon. It was intended to be a Costco with a Costco Home store built-in but Costco got rid of that format and was left with this super sized store. Think it's around 175,000 sq ft.
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Re: Multiple Sam's Club Stores to close

Post by ClownLoach »

marshd1000 wrote: October 2nd, 2021, 3:47 am
Brian Lutz wrote: October 1st, 2021, 10:19 am Costco has filed preliminary plans with the City of Seattle to open a new store in the former Sams Club location on Aurora Avenue:

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/new ... KmOEdl4Slg

Meanwhile the former Sam's Club in Renton continues to sit vacant, although I don't think Costco would have any interest in that site unless they wanted it to replace their Tukwila store (which is built in a large converted warehouse and is reportedly the largest Costco in the world, but tends to have severe parking shortages.)
. I live up the hill from the Renton Sam’s Club. I’m not sure but I think Amazon is leasing that warehouse. I think I see Amazon vans parked in the lot!
Amazon is getting aggressive about leasing big boxes as highly visible delivery hubs. They used to be plain buildings but now they're not afraid to heavily sign the property with giant blue signs and stripes. The Costco in Torrance was already a nice large store and recently relocated to a property behind it. The old store went to Amazon and towers over the new Costco as well as the neighboring Sam's (which might have been the first Costco location there since they're on their third building now!). They look at this as marketing - if you see big Amazon buildings in your neighborhood then they must be able to deliver to your house very quickly, right?

I wouldn't be surprised if the new Torrance store is any smaller than the Hillsboro store - it is massive but lacks any character. Clearly it does so much volume that Costco would rather exclude local/special SKUs from this store in an effort to add facings for high velocity items. I was disappointed in the new store and felt the old one was better in every way especially parking wise. The old one even had a coffee roasting factory in the building, finishing up the roast on Starbucks sourced beans. It was a fantastic store and the new one is just boring for some reason. I usually find each Costco to be unique and fun to visit but I hated this one.

Also the original Price Club in San Diego on Morena keeps adding on space by tearing down walls and adding on rooms. It is an old Hughes aircraft factory and has stunning "cathedral" arched ceilings. With the newest expansions complete it may also be over that 175K mark. That is a very special Costco store. Recently to honor a retiring employee they framed the grand opening banner from the 1970s over the service desk. They also get special liquor selections including single barrel pick whiskey or bourbon. Two of the best bourbons I have ever tasted were buyer picks from this store and actually say "Costco San Diego pick" on them.

Tukwila might be getting misrepresented as the biggest store physically when they might mean the highest sales volume store - that I could see with the large area it covers between Federal Way and Seattle SODO. But I am not an expert on Seattle at all so I might have missed a few stores in between. For quite some time their Top volume store was actually the old one north of Honolulu until they opened up a bunch of other locations on Oahu to bleed it off and make it more manageable. Costco actually has a point that they feel a store is too busy to operate and will then look to build another store nearby. Murrieta, CA just broke ground because their Temecula store is so busy it is out of control.
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Re: Multiple Sam's Club Stores to close

Post by Brian Lutz »

I know the Kirkland Costco (which used to be the one closest to Costco headquarters before they moved to Issaquah) was extremely busy for a long time, to the point that trying to shop there on a Saturday was quite the ordeal. Since that time they've added stores in Woodinville and Redmond, which would presumably divert a fair bit of traffic away from the Kirkland store.
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