Attention Kmart shoppers: Kmart’s newest retailing concept is set to open next week in three Chicago suburbs.
And Kmart Chairman Joseph Antonini is hoping the new 4.5-acre stores in Homewood, Elk Grove Village and Vernon Hills will lure shoppers away from the company’s arch competitors-Wal-Mart and Target.
But these aren’t just any Kmarts. These are what Antonini calls Super Kmarts. They combine a 40,000-square-foot grocery store with a giant Kmart. They’re so big that versions of the stores elsewhere in the country-there were 18 at the end of 1993-have resorted to putting employees on roller blades to quickly get them from one end to the other.
These are the vanguard of the new, improved Kmart.
Kmart’s hopes for the stores are right where everyone can see. Anticipating that the stores will do remarkable business, Kmart has stretched a bank of 30 cash registers across the front. For the Feb. 3 grand opening, the 30 permanent stations are augmented by eight temporary registers.
“I could have 50 registers and still not have enough, we’ll do so much business,” said Mark Underwood, manager of the Homewood Super Kmart, located on Halsted Street south of Interstate 80 on the former site of the Washington Park race track.
This is a discount shopper’s paradise. Next door is a Builder’s Square II, the new prototype home-improvement store owned by Kmart. Across the street is a Goldblatt’s department store, a Silo electronics store and the Washington Square mall.
But Underwood doesn’t want his customers going across the street, let alone next door.
“Hopefully, this is a true one-stop store,” said Underwood, noting the shops and food court designed to keep customers inside. “Everyone else advertises it. But this is it.”
The unanswered question is whether shoppers will be comfortable doing their weekly grocery shopping in a store so large they’ll need maps and compasses to find the front door. The maps are supplied, compasses are not.
The company’s effort 25 years ago to combine discount stores with grocery operations was less than a rousing success. It was abandoned after a two-year effort.
But Clyde Burkle, a Kmart district manager, says low grocery prices will solve any potential problems.
Dominick’s and Jewel, however, aren’t the new store’s competitors. According to Kmart, the grocery operation is targeting Omni, which is owned by Dominick’s, and Cub Foods, owned by Supervalu Inc., headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minn.
Like Omni and Cub, the Super Kmart will be a 24-hour-a-day operation. Well, the store will be sort of a 24-hour-a-day operation.
Many departments, like the pharmacy, optical, liquor and food court, will only be open during regular store hours, meaning 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., said Burkle.
But how much cheaper the new store will be remains to be seen. After all, Kmart’s supplier for its superstores here will be Supervalu.
The Super Kmarts are part of a wave sweeping the retail industry to build bigger and bigger stores designed to entice shoppers to spend more at that one store. Two more are slated to open later this year in Broadview and Round Lake Beach.
Last year, when Target opened its first stores here, the company, a division of Minneapolis-based Dayton Hudson Corp., wasn’t satisfied opening just another Target. Instead, it built 120,000-square-foot Target Greatland stores. Wal-Mart has responded in kind.
The new Homewood Super Kmart replaces one of those small Kmart’s at 183rd Street and Kedzie Avenue, which is closing Thursday. The 150 employees from that store are being transferred to the new store, which will employ 700, half of whom will work full-time.
Unlike older Kmarts, the Homewood Super Kmart is bright and white. And it’s not afraid to crow about the brand names it’s carrying, both in the grocery department and in general merchandise.
Along the walls and above the cash registers are the logos of brand names carried by Super Kmart.
“Many manufacturers, which wouldn’t sell to Kmart before, are willing to sell to the Super Kmarts,” said Underwood.
But a Kmart is still a Kmart.
Over in a corner, atop a pipe, is the company’s ubiquitous blue light, awaiting its call to arms.
“Attention Kmart shoppers. Under the blue light . . .”