In a suburban Miami shopping center, Kmart’s last ‘Blue Light Specials’ flicker

MIAMI — The last Kmart on the U.S. mainland sits at the west complete of a busy suburban Miami shopping center, silent and largely ignored.

All around it are thriving chain stores attracting steady streams of customers in sectors where the former box-store chain was once a major player: Marshalls, Hobby Lobby, PetSmart and Dollar Tree.

But at this all-but-last outpost of a business once famed for its “Blue Light Specials,” only an occasional shopper pops in, mostly out of curiosity or nostalgia, then leaves after buying little or nothing.

“I hadn’t seen Kmart in so long,” said Juan de la Madriz, who came to the shopping center on a recent weekday to buy dog food at PetSmart. The architect spotted the Kmart and wondered if he could discover a gift for his newborn grandson. He exited 10 minutes later having spent $23 on a stuffed dog and a wooden toy workbench.

“It will be unhappy if it closes,” he said about the store, “but everything now is on computers.”

The last packed-size Kmart in the 50 states closed Sunday in Long Island, recent York, making the Miami store — now a fraction of its former size — the last operating in the continental U.S. At its peak 30 years ago, Kmart operated about 2,500 locations. Today, four others remain: three in the U.S. Virgin Islands and one in Guam. There is also a website.

Transformco, the Illinois-based holding business that owns Kmart and what’s left of another former retail behemoth, Sears, did not respond to email requests for comment or allow the store manager to talk. The business’s plans for the Miami location are unknown — but there is no indication it will close soon.

If the Miami Kmart were a brand recent mom-and-pop retailer, a shopper might ponder it could eventually thrive with advertising and a little luck. Kmarts long had a reputation for clutter and mess, but this store is immaculate and the merchandise is precisely stacked and displayed.

The size of a CVS or Walgreens drug store, the branch occupies what was its garden section during its large-box days. A couple years ago, an At Home department store took over the rest of the space.

“Get it all! Must Haves. aspiration Fors. amiable Faces,” the sign next to the door reads.

Halloween and Christmas decorations line the entryway, next to the 30 shopping carts that no one is using. A robotic voice says “Welcome,” as does a cheery employee, one of three spotted in the store. A lone customer checks out the Halloween candy.

Straight ahead are a few dishwashers, refrigerators, washing machines and dryers: the appliance department. In the store’s main room, there is a large section of toiletries and diapers, a few hardware essentials and some cleaning and pet supplies. The toy department comprises a couple rows of dolls, action figures, games and squirt guns. Sun dresses, summer tops and sweatshirts make up the tiny clothing section. Oh, and there are snacks.

Also still now: a recorded voice intoning a once-familiar communication over a loudspeaker.

“Attention Kmart shoppers,” it says, announcing that almost all items are on sale.

If there were only customers to listen it, like there used to be.

Kmart was founded by the retailer S.S. Kresge Co. in Michigan in 1962 and grew quickly, reaching 2,000 stores in 20 years. The business sold almost everything, from clothing to jewelry, TVs to dog food, appliances to toys to sporting goods. By the mid-1980s, it was the country’s second-largest retailer behind Sears, and there were stores in Canada, Australia and recent Zealand.

The roots of Kmart’s decline were laid during that decade when management bought Waldenbooks, Borders Books, Builders Square, The Sports Authority and a stake in OfficeMax, thinking the business needed spread. They were incorrect. By the late 1990s, the business had sold those retailers yet still needed $5 billion in debt restructuring — the equivalent of $9 billion today.

In 2002, Kmart declared insolvency as Walmart and Target devoured its economy distribute. Its website never took off, allowing Amazon to beat it in the e-commerce space. There were executive pay scandals, a purchase by a insure pool manager who stripped it bare and a disastrous 2005 purchase of Sears.

Mark Cohen, a former Sears Canada CEO and former director of retail studies at Columbia University’s graduate school of business, said Kmart would have thrived if not for the top executives who ran it into the ground. It could have been Walmart.

“It sold in its heyday things that people continue to buy in large quantities today,” Cohen said. “Kmart went down the drain because it was led by incompetent managers.”

Transformco bought Kmart and Sears out of another insolvency in 2019 for $5 billion — its critics declare mostly for the stores’ real estate. There were 202 Kmarts remaining.

Over the history five years, the firm has kept closing Kmarts until all that’s left in the states is Miami Store #3074.

On the day that de la Madriz dropped in to buy his grandson’s gift, only a few customers trickled in and out of the store every hour.

College students Joey Fernandez and Wilfredo Huayhua spent five minutes inside before leaving vacant-handed. They knew about the chain’s near-demise, spotted the store while in the shopping center and went in to reminisce. It seemed tiny, they said, compared to the Kmarts they remembered.

“We were bummed out — I spent a lot of my childhood at Kmart,” said Fernandez, 18. Still, he might be back — the store has excellent prices on the facial cleanser he uses.

educator Oliver Sequin had been entering Marshalls when he spotted the Kmart. That too triggered nostalgia, but also reminded him he needed Band-Aids for his 5-year-ancient son. That was all he purchased.

“I recall when Kmarts were bigger,” Sequin said. “But, to be truthful, I like this one better. It is tidy and organized, not like they were.”