Dagnabbit, I almost went in there to see what in the heck they did with the old Mervyn's block. Guess I missed my chance (for others - this was one of the "neighborhood/single-story" Mervyn's, not one of the larger 2 story regional mall sized ones).Brian Lutz wrote: ↑April 6th, 2022, 8:59 am My wife went to that Factoria Walmart last week while I was doing some work-related stuff in the area and said that even by Walmart standards that store was pretty terrible, which is odd because it has what is likely the most affluent demographics of any Walmart store in Washington. It was built in what used to be the mall's Mervyn's store, and even though it was technically a Supercenter, it was probably the smallest one I've seen at around 76,000 square feet (basically the size of a large grocery store) and had a really weird layout because it had to reuse the Mervyn's building. The article says that the store opened in 2012, so it seems to be a non-renewal of a 10 year lease. Aside from the Neighborhood Market elsewhere in Bellevue (which actually opened before the Walmart store did in part of a former KMart on 148th) this is the only Walmart store on the Eastside, and I can think of pretty much nowhere else on the Eastside that they could build a store unless they wanted to buy some farmland in the Sammamish Valley or out on Union Hill Road and somehow convince the Redmond City Council to let them rezone it (highly unlikely.)
As for Target stores near Walmarts, there's one in Everett where they're only a few blocks away from each other on Everett Mall Way, but generally I can't think of many. In Redmond there's also a Target that's right next door to a Fred Meyer store, and both of those stores seem to do fine.
The Walmart neighborhood market strip center looks really healthy! I'd have no idea that was previously a KMart or cancerous shopping plaza.
I can also say there really isn't any wide-open land to build a new store on the "Seattle eastside" so I guess other than pickup and delivery from the NM, they've decided to leave.