General Designer: S.S. Kresge Company (headed by Harry B. Cunningham)
Builder: Darin & Armstrong (main cited)
Construction Range: From 1962 (Southgate) to 1971 (Woodhaven)
Before K-Mart… S.S. Kresge: a brief history
The company which would eventually call Michigan its homebase, the K-Mart discount store chain actually began generations before those stores appeared. The parent company began in the late 1890s as S.S. Kresge Company, led by its namesake (Sebastian Spering Kresge) who began his work career as a traveling salesman. Among his clients was Frank Winfield Woolworth, whose namesake discount chain had nineteen stores operating.
Having saved approximately $6,700 (valued at $268,823 today), Kresge would go into business for himself in 1897 alongside another future discount legend, John McCrory. They opened two stores: one in Memphis, TN, the other was in downtown Detroit. Kresge would buy out the partnership of the Detroit location in 1899 – giving McCrory control of the Memphis store and $3,000 ($120,368 today) – and formed the S.S. Kresge Company alongside Charles J. Wilson.
The original articles of incorporation were filed in Delaware in 1912, but Kresge would move his main presence back to Michigan in 1916 under a separate incorporation order. By the time Kresge stepped down as company president in 1925 (while remaining chairman), his worth was an estimated $375 million, with over $100 million in real estate holdings.
The Kresge dime store chain would continue to evolve steadily until sometime after World War II concluded in 1945. Having survived the Great Depression (with actual store growth), the chain was witnessing a major change in shopping patterns with the public. The tendency here was for families to start branching out from the inner cities into newly-constructed suburban areas. Kresge sales likely stagnated as a result, and with the hiring of Harry B. Cunningham as chairman in 1958, began to reimagine the company as a starting point for larger discount stores, which could concentrate on those suburban areas.
The first K-Mart store was technically opened in 1962 out of San Fernando, CA, but interestingly did not meet the criteria for future stores: at only 27,000 square feet, Kresge himself indicated the location was a “bantam” store that actually was planned as another Kresge location until late in the development process. Future K-Mart stores would utilize at least 80,000 square feet of operating space, which is what the first official 1962 opening in Garden City, MI was able to do.
K-Mart would begin grabbing a hold of the Downriver shopping experience that same year with the opening of the original Southgate location, and for a period of years would not look back. Here are the locations of all K-Mart stores Downriver from 1962 until the final store closed in 2016.
1. Flat Rock (#7272): 27313 Telegraph Rd.
This was most likely the last K-Mart building constructed Downriver; having been built in 1979, it arrived eight years after the Woodhaven location. This was also the lone K-Mart to be built as part of a planned strip mall with unrelated businesses (K-Mart’s original Southgate location was signed as a “plaza,” but did not originally have multiple storefronts during the K-Mart Foods era). This location would also have a 1970s-era Kroger supermarket attached, along with room for three other stores.
Documentation suggests the store did operate here until 2003, and for years afterward was the subject of numerous, though speculative, refurbishment plans which considered the site for a new Meijer store (which would end up on new Vreeland Road frontage west of Telegraph).
By 2016, the largely abandoned strip center had a new owner (Thomas Duke Real Estate), and in October announced plans to sub-divide the former K-Mart footprint into smaller retail stores, along with a complete exterior renovation, which can be seen today on the upper right photo. The center is now anchored by a “Family Farm & Home” retail store.
2. Lincoln Park (#4949): 3710 Dix-Toledo
In an rebranding effort which began in 1991, Super K-Mart stores began to pop up beginning with a location in Medina, Ohio, combining a grocery store with general merchandise. This was not their first time trying this venture: in the 1960s many K-Mart locations operated small markets called K-Mart Foods, which faded by the end of that decade. This would be their first foray into the superstore concept, originally pioneered by Meijer. The stores would be much bigger and have a different, sleeker look about them. Lincoln Park would be chosen for the first of these Super K-Mart stores Downriver.
The eventual spot at Dix-Toledo at Emmons would require modifications to the land on which it sat, namely by removing at least three of the radio towers from the group at the location (today the remaining towers broadcast WLQV-AM 1500) before construction could begin. The Lincoln Park store opened for business in 1994 and did reasonably well, but may have been the victim of market saturation. It would close by 2003 and – ironically enough – be replaced by a Meijer store, which continues in business today and has become one of their blue-ribbon stores in the state of Michigan.
3. Melvindale (#4238): 25201 W. Outer Drive
This K-Mart would open to the public in 1968, just west of the new Seaway (I-75) freeway at the corner of Outer Drive & Rialto. It, along with the future Woodhaven location, would also feature a small Wrigley supermarket on the building’s east end. When Wrigley folded by 1977, this eastern space sat largely un-utilized.
This location was closed on the same day as its sister store in Southgate (January 10, 1995) as the first Super K-Mart location opened a month prior in Lincoln Park. The Melvindale location would stand vacant for several years before serving a charitable purpose: it would house the local St. Vincent DePaul chapter on a temporary basis while recovering from a costly fire at its original Fort Street location. Upon completion of a new building, St. Vincent would move on.
Finally in January 2007, Faith Christian Academy took over the building, where they remain to this day. As can be seen on the photo to the right, the exterior was completely modernized for their purposes. It was the church’s third location since its 1937 formation and, as their website points out, both relocations have been no more than two blocks apart on Outer Drive.
4. Southgate (#4021): 13311 Eureka Road
The first Downriver K-Mart opened for business at 10 AM on November 26, 1962. The building was 131,767 square feet, and included a K-Mart Foods branch on the west side of the building. It was one of the few K-Mart locations to contain a mezzanine in the back, but the only location in the chain’s history to carry a full-sized furniture department. The initial store manager was John E. Balauger.
After K-Mart Foods dissolved its operations in the late 1960s, the west storefront would be replaced by a Farmer Jack supermarket by the early 1970s. It would remain there until the late 1980s, when its final Southgate location (out of three total) would be built next to Service Merchandise at the Southgate Shopping Center.
This K-Mart survived at this location until closing (along with the Melvindale location) on January 10, 1995, following a store-wide, 75% off clearance sale. Its successor superstore would be opened later that year; see entry below.
The building is currently sub-divided into Dunham’s Sporting Goods on the east end, with Just Storage, a climate-controlled storage facility, on the west end. No exterior rehabilitation has ever occurred for the storefront or parking lot. In fact, the facade’s “footprint” of the former garden center area can still be identified.
Just Storage had replaced a former Kroger store on the west end which located here in the 2010s. In a twist of irony, that Kroger would relocate and become Michigan’s largest Kroger in square footage – replacing the Super K-Mart listed below – which in turn had replaced store #4021 at this location.
5. Southgate (#4995): 16075 Fort Street
After having been mothballed for 13 years, the old E.J. Korvette complex at Fort and Pennsylvania Road had finally been razed in 1993. Two years later, the successor to the Eureka Road #4021 location was opened to the public. The location, the second Super K-Mart location since the chain’s specific re-branding, boasted one of the most modern climate control systems in any Downriver building recently constructed.
The store would stay open nearly twenty years, until company contraction as well as competition from the Meijer store across the street would force its 2014 closure. In September 2016, the city of Southgate announced the property would be redeveloped into a new Kroger Marketplace, which as of 2019 had earned the distinction of being Michigan’s largest square-footage Kroger store.
6. Taylor (#4393): 11000 Telegraph Road
Of the eight K-Mart stores Downriver, this location is perhaps the least known and most difficult to remember. A 2026 check of AI did reveal this store opened on August 12, 1971 and remained functional until bankruptcy forced this location’s hand in 2003. The photo to the left was, in fact, taken on the grand opening day. Torn down rather quickly by 2004, it would become Home Depot soon afterward.
#7: Taylor (#4059): 21111 Van Born Road
The Van Born Road location opened in March, 1964 and was the second Downriver K-Mart to operate. It is thought this location housed a small grocery store on the east end; whether or not this was K-Mart Foods or a Wrigley is not certain.
This storefront claims several notable points. With its lifespan (1964-2016), this K-Mart would last the longest of any of the eight stores Downriver. It would also be the last on the list to undergo renovation and modernization (in the 2000s), a fact many critics have pointed out when referencing the degradation of the chain, specifically during the early Sears Holdings era. Additionally, it remains the only location under new ownership (Masco initially owned it as part of their Taylor World Headquarters) where the building has not yet been repurposed or slated for tear-down.
With the 2016 closure, K-Mart would officially vanish from Downriver. For several years, the closest store (and the only one in Wayne County) would be in Belleville, known to have survived into the 2020s.
#8: Woodhaven (#4183): 19800 West Road
Woodhaven’s population upon obtaining city status was perhaps less than 3,000. By the end of the decade, with the Socony-Mobil refinery and Woodhaven Stamping Plant in full operations, and with neighborhoods under development on the city’s west end, the call came for a K-Mart to be located at Allen and West Roads.
Constructed in 1970 for a March 1971 opening, this would be the largest overall structure the company had built up to that point. As with the Melvindale location, this K-Mart had a small Wrigley supermarket attached at the east end of the building. When Wrigley folded by 1977, instead of sub-letting that portion of the building, the dividing wall was simply knocked down to provide additional selling space. This K-Mart would be the only Downriver location to have its own lumber department, located at the back of the building and identified by an orange-tiled floor leading to it.
For nineteen years, Woodhaven K-Mart faced no sizeable competition. This would change with the opening of the Meijer store across Allen Road in 1990. The subsequent dismantling of the Socony-Mobil refinery released a considerable amount of space, which facilitated the construction of Wal-Mart further down Allen Road. Target would open for business across from K-Mart sometime later. Now squeezed for business, the writing was on the wall for this location, which had their closeout sale in the summer of 2013.
Renovations and upgrades to the building began slowly at first, perhaps due to concerns about business saturation reaching the breaking point, with doubts likely surfacing that the West & Allen Road intersection could handle more traffic without a major upgrade. However, renovation of the former K-Mart would speed up in the latter part of the decade, with several outbuildings constructed toward West Road. The property is barely recognizable today when compared to yesteryear, but with all four corners of the intersection living to its potentials, any fears about saturation have largely been alleviated.