DEFUNCT Home Improvement Chains

[Groceteria]

Former HQ and former J.M. Fields, Virginia Beach, October 2007:



As you look at the logo, try to hear the dancing letters and their jingle in your head:

"I'm H."
"I'm Q."
"Together, we're HQ."

[Steve Landry]

Thanks David

Any guess on the size of this building? 125,000 sqft?

Also, was there a Pantry Pride/Food Fair attached or nearby?

[Groceteria]

Any guess on the size of this building? 125,000 sqft?

Also, was there a Pantry Pride/Food Fair attached or nearby?

Probably 100-125K. I can't say for sure about a Food Fair. There was a redevelopment-type lifestyle ("main street") center across the street, and the HQ building was, I believe, slated for demolition. It obviously had been vacant since HQ moved out many years before. HQ apparently liked old big box discount stores; they took over at least one former Zayre that I know of as well.

[TenPoundHammer]

There was of course Builder's Square. I remember one in Saginaw — 1/3 of it is still empty. Another was in Flint. About 90% of the store became Jo-Ann Fabrics, Old Navy and Bed Bath & Beyond. This left a skinny little store in the middle which became a discount bookstore. It still had concrete floors and a high ceiling that made it feel like a home improvement store.

Another one was Handy Andy, which acquired the aforementioned Forest City. A lot of the Handy Andys around here used to be Hills, and I know of one in Taylor that was a Topps. Menards also took a lot of Hills locations around here.

[paysh]

Here in Central Florida was a chain of hardware stores/lumber yards called Scotty's. When I moved here in the mid 1980s, they were pretty much the only game in town as there were neither Home Depot nor Lowe's stores any place near us. They had both big lumber yard type stores (in Orlando and Kissimmee) and smaller stores in shopping centers all around the area.

After Home Depot entered the picture, some of the smaller locations changed to some kind of strange hardware/dollar store hybrid, but that did not last long. I am guessing that by the mid 1990s they were gone. The South Orlando location became a Cadillac dealership and the Kissimmee lumber yard a Salvation Army and Staples.