Best Buy Bites the Dust: Best Buy #897, Farmington Hills, Mich. (#2)

It was July of 2016. Kmart's slow demise was progressing, claiming another victim in Metro Detroit: the Farmington Hills Big K store, across the road from the Hunters' Square shopping center. Previously a Topps store, the Kmart opened in 1973, and sported a unique facade with stone and orange brick by the doors, likely original to Topps. 

Farmington Hills Kmart exterior (2013)

picture by Foursquare user Rae J.

Come 2018, Kmart's former space had been completely gutted, and subdivided into three spaces. ALDI and Party City were open by December 2018, the latter moving from an existing store about a mile south on Orchard Lake Road. Burlington followed, opening in between the two in early 2019.

The late Kmart's replacements (March 2021)

Good triumphs, an old Kmart repurposed successfully... until early that following autumn, when its longtime next-door neighbor, Best Buy, announced its impending closure.

The Farmington Hills, Michigan Best Buy store, located at 30830 Orchard Lake Road, was built in 2004, attached to the north end of the established Kmart. It was a fairly typical Best Buy from the time, with the flat version of Best Buy's usual facade, and a brown and white exterior. It was nice, but not very unique.

Best Buy entrance (October 2019)

I visited the store fairly early in its history, as my family bought its first laptop computer at this Best Buy location in the fall of 2005, for which I still have the receipt. I only vaguely remember said visit. I'd gone into this store a few more times before it closed, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. There weren't any obvious signs of decline until my final visit.

Somehow I'd completely missed any media coverage of the closing, as when I ventured to this Best Buy one late October afternoon to buy a DTV antenna, I was taken by surprise, seeing this on my way in:

Or maybe "After a while, crocodile!" (October 2019)

This guy was all over the store... (October 2019)

I'd never seen a Best Buy in the process of closing before, so it seemed kind of weird to me at the time that there was so little fanfare, and no sale as a result of the closure. 

A few pictures inside from about a week before closing:

I don't know Best Buy's decor very well, but the checkout signage seems like it could be original from the early-mid 2000s. (October 2019)

This seemed to resemble a Samsung Galaxy S III, by then a seven-year-old device, predating the Verizon logo which adorned it. I wonder if this was outdated or the then-current design for VZW's displays. (October 2019)

The store closed permanently on November 2, 2019, as scheduled. It was among a group of closures late that year that included the chain's downtown Chicago store. Local rumors and retail community speculation attributed the closure to a raise in rent, which makes sense, as I've heard similar things about the other closures around then, and no reports of a company-wide plan to close certain stores were announced.

I paid a visit in December 2020 to see the store after closing. They'd removed all Best Buy signage, although the street sign had a labelscar, which was pretty clear if viewed from the right angle.

The price tag shape is clear as day. (December 2020)

The facade is so obviously Best Buy that they might as well have just left the sign. (December 2020)

It might be hard to see here, but the bracket for the Best Buy Mobile sign remains. (December 2020)

This was probably made with PowerPoint. (December 2020)

Funny they should mention the Bloomfield Township store... as it closed permanently on October 31, 2021, just three days short of a year later.

(February 2021)

This Circuit City-turned-Best Buy bore another closure notice with Calibri font, with no Best Buy branding... aside from some special Best Buy tape, that is. And funny it should mention the Rochester Hills store, as it closed without any warning a few months in March 2021, the third Best Buy closure in Oakland County in just two years.

Rochester Hills Best Buy shortly after closure (March 2021)

pictures by Corey Rowe, used with permission

This makes me half-wonder if Best Buy will continue the trend and close one of the three stores listed here. Only time will tell what the future holds for these three former Best Buys, but for now, all three are still sitting disused and intact. The Rochester Hills space is reportedly being considered by Amazon for a new Amazon Fresh store, but neither the Farmington Hills or Bloomfield Township stores currently have any announced plans for a new tenant. As of July 2021, Best Buy still operates ten stores across Metro Detroit: four in Oakland County (Auburn Hills, Madison Heights, Novi, Southfield), four in Wayne County (Allen Park, Dearborn, Taylor, Westland), and two in Macomb County (Roseville, Utica). 

I hope you all enjoyed the first real post of Oakland County Retail. See you in the next one!

(Update, 11/2022: This space is now occupied by a new dual-branded Marshalls/HomeGoods store, replacing the long-established location across the street in Hunters' Square.)