At the height of the 90’s when companies decided to branch out and try new things, while not new, membership warehouses were booming. Warehouses such as Price Club, Pace Membership Warehouse, Costco, or my favorite, SourceClub, which was a short lived chain of warehouses owned and operated by Meijer, whose 7 stores lasted no more than 2 years in Michigan. Nowadays its often asked why Muncie can’t get a Sam’s Club, but the kicker? They almost did!
During a Delaware County Government meeting in October of 1993; officials from Kmart were nowhere to be found; during this time there was a competition between Kmart and Meijer to create the first “supercenter” in Muncie. This meeting albeit deemed Muncie’s chances at getting a “Super Kmart Center” crushed, and Meijer had won that competition. However, officials from Sam’s Club were there, and they were listening[1]. Sam’s had their sights set on the space where Super Kmart was proposed, the northeast corner of Morrison & McGalliard. Currently the main tenants at that corner are Ruler Foods (Formerly Circuit City), Pet Smart, and Ashley Furniture (Formerly Toys “R” Us).
Plans were set, Sam’s Club would build a 100,000+ sq. ft. membership warehouse, and Morrison Road would be widened to 5 lanes, with Bethel widened to 3 lanes all the way down to Target Plaza (now Rural King). Sam’s Club was scheduled to start construction in August of 1994 with a timeline of completion in March 1995[2]. This construction had skeptics and criticism its whole tenure, but one big part of this was that nearby residents were going to have to foot the bill for easements and entrances into their driveways until the Delaware County Drainage Board decided to vote to have Walmart foot that cost. After all, this development would be right up against houses on Allison Road, and would practically be in their backyards.
Mere weeks before construction was set to begin in August ’94 Sam’s Club halted the project to “rethink it”. The official wording was that “a marketing study is being done” [3]. Months went by until December of 1994 when it said that they still planned to build and construction would begin in early 1995. All chatter on the matter went quiet until September 1995 when it was reported that, among other things, the warehouse was now on track for early 1997. Basically at that time Sam’s Club owned the land, and were just sitting on it.
March of 1996 came an article in The Star Press “Sam’s Club officials still looking at Muncie”. This article mentioned a few things, the biggest takeaway was that Sam’s Club had owned the property since 1994, and the project was originally put on hold at the same time that Sam’s bought Pace Membership Warehouse from Kmart. Finally, the inevitable came on October 31st, 1996 “Muncie won’t be site of Sam’s” [4]. After 3 years, Sam’s Club said “No thanks” to Muncie. All that buildup just for it not to happen, some people were relieved, some upset that they had to go to bigger cities. So what happened to the site?
In August 1997 it was announced that a plaza with Circuit City, Toys R Us, and Petsmart would take its place. However, there was some confusion in 1998 when it was said that Petsmart would not be joining the development[5]. While Petsmart was in limbo and at risk of being cancelled, they announced in May of 1998 that they were coming after all[6]. In the end all three opened, Toys “R” Us on November 14th, 1998. Circuit City opened on November 20th, 1998 and Petsmart later on May 15th, 1999.
Over the years the retail climate in Muncie has changed, chains have closed due to poor sales or bankruptcy and Morrison Plaza is the perfect example, Circuit City closed their Muncie location in 2007 as part of a closing round involving 7 US locations and 62 Canadian locations. They would completely go out of business in 2009. Toys “R” Us would be next in 2018 when the whole chain collapsed and closed all locations. Outparcels include Walgreens, Steak ‘n’ Shake, Concannons Bakery & Cafe, ATI Physical Therapy and Thrive Credit Union. Thanks for taking this trip back in history with me!
Sources Cited:
1. (Thu, Oct 28, 1993 The Star Press)
2. (Public Notice Thu, Jun 16, 1994 The Star Press)
3. (Mon, Aug 29th, 1994 The Star Press)
4. (Tues, Oct 31st, 1995 The Star Press)
5. (Mon, May 4th, 1998 The Star Press)
6. (Sat, May 16th, 1998 The Star Press)
The Hoosier Historical Record 