But this building had a complicated history even before Sam's Club. It was built in 1984 by Price Savers Warehouse, a Costco knockoff (or maybe not, as Costco itself was pretty new at that point) owned by
Pay 'n Save (the drugstore chain that eventually became part of Payless and later Rite Aid). According to that Wikipedia article, Price Savers was only owned by Pay 'n Save for a few years (1983-1985) and then changed hands many times, being owned first by Kroger (1985-1988), then going private (1988-1991) before being bought out by Kmart, which rebranded them to Pace (1991-1993), and then finally being bought by Walmart, which rebranded them to Sam's Club. I'm not sure how many Price Savers stores there were, but this was the only Seattle-area one to make it to the end of Sam's Club, as the other two stores were built (Renton) or converted (Auburn) following the Sam's Club takeover.
That's pretty interesting stuff! I knew about Pace, but not all that came before it.
ReplyDeleteI don't really know anything about Pace besides what I posted here! 🙂 If it was in your area too, there must have been some parts of it that weren't originally Price Savers, as I'm pretty sure that was just a west coast chain.
DeleteIt really is crazy to think about how many different stores Kmart once owned... and how pretty much all of them are dead now in one way or another.
I should probably clarify that I don't know anything about where they were located, just that they were Kmart's attempt at a warehouse club and that they were pretty much eaten by Sam's after that!
DeleteYep - they had so many offshoots, many of which were successful (even if they've since died off, or been severely diminished). I would have loved to have seen one of those fully Kmart-owned shopping centers in its heyday!