Office Depot

[AquaMan]

Lots of retail space opening up in this country.

Dead and Dying:
Music stores, toy stores, electronic stores, book stores, video rental stores, newspapers, and now office supply stores.

Next up. Grocery Stores. Will Amazon Fresh and Google Shopping Express kill grocery stores, at least as we know them today? WWWMD?

What will Wal-Mart do?

The Office Depot life cycle was interesting to watch. I handled the advertising account for the World when they first arrived in Tulsa back in the 80's. They saw that the office supply business was basically neighborhood store fronts or small buildings located in high density office areas that provided basic supplies but ordered most stuff for delivery from manufacturer catalogs. Dukes was an example.

Two guys in Florida thought the industry was ripe for exploiting with the warehouse concept of retailing that was then hot. Starting on a shoestring they used abandoned Safeway buildings because of the good site locations and low cost conversions. It was sort of the general store for office supplies and worked quite well and they expanded.

Jump forward 20 years and the wheel of retailing had turned back to where it originally had been and I started working in one of their stores. They were now getting away from their successful model and had jettisoned the founders. They had designed their own (high overhead) buildings in several versions and put them in high cost shopping centers and stand alone sites. Merchandising suffered from a lack of accurate customer identification. Our store at 15th and Lewis was called a "north" store and was stocked as such even though they resided in a very high demographic area filled with self employed, home office customers.

They now saw themselves as leaders in electronics, printing, and RTA furniture. All stuff easily purchased online or at specialists. They have been failing to meet goals since at least the last seven years and routinely blame it on low level staff who they mistreat and underpay. Those employees in turn stole from them and abused them. Their idea of quality managers was hiring ex-Sears, K-mart and cell phone company managers. One decent manager in the entire Tulsa system. Check their employee remarks online. Morons with a whip. One electronics dept. manager was a former truck driver for the company. Heavy pressure to sell electronics and warranties in any way possible.

I set records for furniture sales for the whole region which meant of course, they wanted me to sell electronics which I knew or cared, nothing about. I loved meeting many of the long time movers and shakers in the city who came there to shop. Mayors, council members, Beryl Ford, Helmerich, nearby TU professors, and a host of eccentric businessmen and lawyers. They fired me because I refused to let a manager yell at me in front of customers for not immediately answering her radio. The only tarnish on my employment career.

F them.

[swake]

Wine, beer and bourbon...that's the delivery we need here.

Sinner.

[Townsend]

Sinner.

Busted

[nathanm]

Some hazard. Drove around it for forty years without a problem and never saw anaccident in the three years I worked across the street from it.

Having occasion to be at that Walgreen's a couple times a month, I have seen a fair number of people nearly kill themselves or others making what was a blind left due to the tree. Combined with the hill limiting sight lines for traffic eastbound, it should have gone a long time ago. The other tree was fine in that respect, unless maybe it was causing trouble when exiting the insurance agent's parking lot. They were both half rotten, just not dead yet. Even on Street View you can see the enormous holes that both of them had.

[AquaMan]

Yeah. That's always the explanation, the (tree, apts, house, car, neighborhood) was (rotting, a pos, a traffic hazard, a blight on the area) and needs to be (razed, brought up to modern standards, removed). Then one day you drive by a lovely neighborhood and it looks like a bleak, treeless ghetto of lighted insurance companies, cell phone stores, fast food and nail salons.

Here's a thought. Don't build so that your customers have to turn left into an already crowded intersection. Build so that the parking lots are in the back and pedestrians can enter from the front and drivers from the rear. Require new retail in old areas to replace or renew landscaping to match existing styles including trees.

Wait. I just described the area before Walgreens, Office Depot and Albertsons(Reesors) moved in.

[Red Arrow]

Sinner.

Only because of his limited choice of liquor.  He should have included Tequila, Scotch, Rum and (although I don't care for it) Gin.

[AquaMan]

And Rye. Can't have a decent old fashioned without it.

[nathanm]

Here's a thought. Don't build so that your customers have to turn left into an already crowded intersection. Build so that the parking lots are in the back and pedestrians can enter from the front and drivers from the rear. Require new retail in old areas to replace or renew landscaping to match existing styles including trees.

Wait. I just described the area before Walgreens, Office Depot and Albertsons(Reesors) moved in.

Don't disagree with this, just disagree with leaving hazards in place once the stupid decision to put a drive there had already been taken.

[RecycleMichael]

I live near the Office Depot at 51st and Memorial. It is nice to have a store nearby that has me as the only customer. There is plenty of help and never a line at checkout.

[Conan71]

I live near the Office Depot at 51st and Memorial. It is nice to have a store nearby that has me as the only customer. There is plenty of help and never a line at checkout.

Surprised there haven't been any takers on the old Albertson's space since smile Pyramid moved out.

[swake]

Surprised there haven't been any takers on the old Albertson's space since smile Pyramid moved out.

I bet that is a really high theft location. All those apartments across 51st are really rough.

[Hoss]

Surprised there haven't been any takers on the old Albertson's space since smile Pyramid moved out.

I thought a gym was moving into that location?

[DolfanBob]

And Rye. Can't have a decent old fashioned without it.

The drink of Thurston Howell the 3rd. I can still hear the way he said Old Fashioned. 

[Conan71]

I bet that is a really high theft location. All those apartments across 51st are really rough.

They were a little sketchy when I lived in RM's neighborhood 20 years ago, but I don't recall the Albertson's as being over-run with refugees from the apartments.

[sgrizzle]

Litter suburbs with empty unusable 102,000 square foot shells.

Is Lazer tag still a thing?

Trampoline parks are it now. We just got like 4 of them in Tulsa.