A&P in Manning, SC

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Ephrata1966
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A&P in Manning, SC

Post by Ephrata1966 »

How is it possible A&P had two small Centennials next to each other but at different distances from the road on Brooks Street in Manning, South Carolina? One is now a "Maxway" variety store (same company as "Roses") and the slightly smaller one is a Do it Best hardware store.
wnetmacman
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Re: A&P in Manning, SC

Post by wnetmacman »

Ephrata1966 wrote:How is it possible A&P had two small Centennials next to each other but at different distances from the road on Brooks Street in Manning, South Carolina? One is now a "Maxway" variety store (same company as "Roses") and the slightly smaller one is a Do it Best hardware store.
If you look closely at either Google or Live maps, you'll see that the Maxway store is significantly larger than the hardware store. That being said, I'd be willing to bet the one that was the hardware store was built earlier, and either modified into a centennial, or was a very small store, and that it was replaced by the store that is now the Maxway. The hardware store is also somewhat non-proportional for the centennial, where the Maxway looks quite standard.
Scott Greer
jimbobga
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Re: A&P in Manning, SC

Post by jimbobga »

Almost the same situation exists in Scottsboro, Alabama. Near to downtown, a centennial is on the west side of the street; a block further north and an older centennial is across the street. The newer centennial is larger, but it doesn't look like it's all that much bigger. I can't remember what is located in the buildings now, but they are both occupied.
krogerclerk
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Re: A&P in Manning, SC

Post by krogerclerk »

I did a double take in Scottsboro, myself, as I hadn't been in downtown Scottsboro since the early 80's or so, when US 72 was rerouted bypassing the city. I suspect the Family Dollar is the older location, being smaller and closer to the road, but doesn't really appear to be much older than the Goodwill store, which has a larger parking lot and a slightly bigger footprint. The Family Dollar doesn't show any evidence of being redone, so I suspect it opened early in the centennial era while the second location came online near the end of the phase.
I don't recall A&P being open from my first memories of staying at Lake Guntersville and making weekend summer trips with my family to buy fresh produce on Sand Mountain, so the second store must have closed early on, around the time of the first wave of closures in 1974. Fort Payne across Sand Mountain and closer to the Georgia border has an A&P that predates the centennial era on US 11(Gault Avenue North), that had a low ball centennial makeover, getting the roofline but no roof and cupola. It was last a NAPA auto parts. Since centennials were built from roughly 1959-1972, some sources cite 1969, it's possible to have replaced a centennial with a centennial. In the 80's Kroger replaced some early 80's small greenhouse stores with a later larger greenhouse store, as in Crossville, TN where the 1st greenhouse is a Big Lots adjoining Kmart while the 2nd greenhouse adjoined the Walmart replacement for a Kuhn's Big K store.
rich
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Re: A&P in Manning, SC

Post by rich »

It's rare but not totally unusual to find that A&P had true centennials near each other. One would have been from the first wave of construction (late 50s), the other would have come at the end of the wave (late 60s/early 70s) perhaps a little larger or in a better location relative to other factors. One of them has been renovated beyond recognition, but they had two stores like this in Mentor, Ohio---one was an early centennial, which closed when they opened a new one 10+ years later in a new shopping center across from a very large mall that was a bout a mile away. The centennial era was long enough for stores to be replaced. A&P rarely invested in existing stores during this period and almost never enlarged them.

Kroger operated in much the same way from the 50s until well into the late greenhouse era. The stores There were a few stores that were upgraded to superstore status, but more often they simply relocated. In the Eastern Suburbs of Cleveland, they moved from a late 40s shopping center at Mayfield & Green roads, to a c. 1960 location a mile or so away at Richmond and Mayfield and then to Richmond Mall in 1966. The latter store was much largere than the usual store Kroger had been building at that time. The stores were progressively bigger, although I can think of examples where the jumps were modest in size from 15K to 19K.
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