Abandoned Toys R Us McAllen Texas January 2019

Here is a quick post to document this pristine Toys R Us that may still be sitting vacant. These photos taken in January 2019 show a store that appeared to still be open until closer inspection. The property had been recently purchased so that may explain why the lights were on, trying to attract a new tenant. This location is almost directly between the mall and the Kmart previously featured on the blog. A lot of vacant Toys R Us locations are in the process of being converted to other uses or have had the signage taken down. 

Later in 2019 Houston will get one of the 2 planned new Toys R Us locations, the first since the company closed all of the USA locations as part of their bankruptcy. The new store will be a much smaller location than their normal stores were. It remains to be seen if the reboot will be successful or not, but we here at the blog wish them success.

Had to stop by the next morning to see this place in the day.

Kmart McAllen Texas January 2019

Here is the final Kmart that remains open in the entire State of Texas. The McAllen Kmart is listed as 128,029 square feet and was built in the mid 1970's. This location is located at a very busy intersection near the regions largest mall, La Plaza Mall. The region has a population of over 1,300,000 people and is one of the busiest border crossings. As you can see from the photos below, the store has been updated fairly recently with the latest store design. I visited the store on one of the coldest nights of the 2018-2019 Winter season. This area rarely sees temperatures below 40 degrees, but this night was an exception.

A little video footage of the store is in my older YouTube video found here.

As you can see, this is a massive store, larger than most stores that were left after the 2002 bankruptcy.

This sign has not held up very well even though it is fairly new.

The store looks really awesome in this photo. 

Now for the inside of the store. There are over 200 photos, I made sure to get the most of out my trip. At the time of my visit, there was still a very good possibility that Sears/Kmart was going to liquidate. Thankfully the company was saved. but still faces a tough challenge to survive. This store was very clean and well organized.

Pharmacy was gone.

Classic Kmart air vents.

A hidden cubby spot next to the old pharmacy.

One of the many clearance spots throughout the store.

An example of the vastness of the store. 

Sadly, this store suffers from maintenance issues like so many other stores. The employees do their best to keep the store clean, but buckling floors require expensive repairs.

Garden shop, the outdoor patio was closed on my visit. 

The Garden shop randomly ends but there are a lot of products past the partition on the left. Work in progress I guess.

Behind the partition.

Now back to the main store. This Kmart sign is awesome. You can see it from across the main front aisle of the store.

This visit was 10 days after Christmas so there were still lots of Christmas items and toys.

Speaking of toys, the store had a huge selection of toys. Toy department, Christmas department, back corner of the store, hardware department, all had some toys thrown in.

Now for the hardware and auto departments.

This shelf in the hardware department was empty that night, but you will see that they filled it the next day with more toys.

Toys everywhere!

There was a good selection of bikes.

They might want to take that price scanner sign down.

The back corner of the store was well stocked, but with a lot of random items.

The store is massive as you can see from this end to end photo.

Here in the next several photos, you will see the somewhat randomness of the back corner of the store. Mostly sporting goods, but a lot of random products thrown in to fill spaces.

This end cap is a good example of doing their best to fill empty spaces.

Lots of furniture displays and random products thrown on the wall shelving.

Even more toys stretching across this aisle near the electronics.

Now for a detailed look at the grocery department. Sodas and water is plentiful, but the food items are somewhat lacking.

These Jarritos sodas are in tons of places across the store.

How about some Jarritos soda instead of milk.

As you can see items are really stretched out to try and fill shelf space.

Now for the appliance and electronics departments.

An increasingly rare sight in a Sears and Kmart store, televisions.

No blank cassette tapes to be found.

Even with the newer design of this store, the electronics department photos are dated. Maybe they should have kept the Walkman lady from the 90's.

Now this is a strange combo. Toilet paper and awesome cleaner, lol.

A view of the whole electronics department.

Just like the rest of the Kmart stores, we have a random assortment of NFL team gear.

Nintendo products had not been in Kmart stores for a while so this was refreshing to see.

Fitting rooms.

Restrooms and layaway.

Not much going on in the layaway on this evening.

Very sure this was the café area. Not sure if this was a Kcafe or Little Caesars.

A very wide checkout area.

Lots of red, similar to Target.

You want a Coke, how about a Jarrito Soda instead, lol.

Former auto center.

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Photos from the 2nd day. The store was much busier on this visit. I made sure to get more images of the products and sections of the store that I missed the night before. 

I found it!

A better example of the randomness of the back corner of the store.

The Garden shop Kgro soils had been moved inside during the Winter I suppose. 

Here is the same area of the store I mentioned above. The shelves were empty the night before, now they are filled with toys.

I wonder how old this product is. It grabbed my attention in the randomness of the back area of the store.

Summer swimming items thrown in the back corner of the store.

Here is the exterior of the store in the day.

Stay tuned, one more article from the Rio Grande Valley on the way.