Retail Mix, Volume 1

Welcome back to the Shoppes of BatteryMill! Today's post will be a quickie, though not necessarily with content! I present to you the first Retail Mix photo compilation series, focusing on a wide array of individual pictures I felt couldn't really fit with their own categories.

This inaugural edition of the Retail Mix will focus on various photos I took over the summer from various retail destinations around Northern Virginia. These range from rather common retail sights to some oddities, of which we have several in both categories. Without further ado, enjoy!

Photos taken from June 10, 2019 to August 14, 2019

We start this photoset with a (somewhat) retro retail gem - CRT TVs at the Potomac Mills Rainbow store (a former 5-7-9). Playing a variety of music videos, these TVs match the somewhat classic store look - and still sport the chain's old brand logo through their programming. On a related note, Rainbow also has a location in the Smoketown Stations center outside the mall.

We tab over to the Nike store, where we see a rather interesting AC system. How tubular!

Jumping on over to PWC's other enclosed mall, Manassas has a rather peculiar old storefront near Sears. While this has been uncovered after several years, it only briefly hosted a tenant.

A Project Impact era without text - what could this mean possibly? (spoiler: the opposite side marks "Dairy")

Just another perimeter grocery area at Walmart. The aisle markers were updated in 2018 to include the mobile identification system. I find it a little garish, but I guess they should advance to the mobile age.

Here are background signs in the Walmart grocery area. The yellow grocery walls were repainted in early 2018.

Something rather interesting in the retail sphere - a recently closed Five Guys restaurant (which relocated to a site near the Manassas Mall).  On top of that, it was once a CVS/Pharmacy that relocated across Sudley Road to a standalone spot in 1999. This is interesting considering a Walgreens currently operates on the other side of this shopping center.

A small, yet mighty store location marker at Bull Run Plaza. Its color scheme and design is reflective of local history.

The ingress/egress street from the Bull Run Plaza shopping center in Manassas, lined with dense shrubs and colorful trees. Also pictured is part of the shopping center with a California Tortilla restaurant and a tower listing three tenants (Michaels, Petsmart, and the now closed Shoppers location.

Changes are afoot at Walmart. The majority of overhead signage, from the windows to the walls, has been taken down for what has become a remodel with a long rollout. Through the next few months, new LED lighting would be installed and a new pickup center would be constructed outside the store. Into 2020, the store would begin an official, wide-scale remodel. Photos of the remodel will be uploaded soon to this blog, so stay tuned!

Seeing double at Ross? This unusual retail find occured last year as the chain swapped locations after only three years in business. Ross replaced a former CWPrice/Fallas location in its new spot while the old Ross became a DD's Discounts soon after. The former Ross location was part of a long-closed Shoppers Food store.

 The golden entrance to Ikea... walk this way for DIY furniture and visionary showrooms!

What's a blog post without something out of the ordinary? This Costco price tag made its way to no other place than an Ikea parking garage. Talk about that...

West Elm is one of Mosaic District's trendy clothing tenants, selling higher-fashion products emblematic to the center.

Barnes & Noble is still opening new stores such as this one, which opened this past April. It is rather smaller and dedicated more towards younger shoppers, however it still happens to feature lots of items with a regular lineup of products.

A now-former Z Gallerie stands at the Mosaic Center across from the Target parking garage entrance. This store, among 17 other locations of this luxury home decor store closed after a bankruptcy filing and acquisition by DirectBuy.

Closing out today's photoset, we observe how the old low-rise Merrifield meets the new medium-rise development - a sign of the times in this edge city. The first photo features a shopping center anchored by HMart and Office Depot, and a standalone TitleMax auto loans shop appears surrounded by the Mosaic District.

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More editions are to come, featuring more of what I've taken for y'all. 'Till then, have fun!