Gawker (http://gawker.com/5923608/texas-town-converts-abandoned-walmart-into-award+winning-public-library)

http://constructbirmingham.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/mcallen-loan.jpg
http://constructbirmingham.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/beautiful-solution/


After Walmart closed up shop in McAllen, they left 124,500 square feet of retail space behind for use by the city.

Rather than bring in another big box corporation to pick up where Walmart left off, the southern Texas city decided to turn the building into its new public library. And not just any public library neither: Upon its completion, the McAllen Public Library became the largest single-story library in the United States.

The project was massively successful: Registration by first-time patrons went up by 23% in the library's first month of operation, and its "functional, flexible and affordable" interior — constructed by Minneapolis-based Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd. — was recently named winner of the International Interior Design Association's 2012 Library Interior Design Competition.

"In a city like McAllen, with cartel violence across the river (less than 10 miles away from the library), I think it's amazing that the city is devoting resources to a) not only saving a large and conspicuous piece of property from decline and vandalism, but b) diverting those resources into youth and the public trust," McAllen native Adriana Ramirez told the LA Times.


http://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/07/McAllen-Library-3.jpeg

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef01676821a4fc970b-800wi

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6p3ionyEs1qzt7h7o5_1280.jpg

http://www.fastcoexist.com/multisite_files/coexist/imagecache/slideshow-large/slides/LS20120311_McAllenLibrary_014.jpg

WOW, that is great. I wish some of the dead box stores here would be used like that. Looks great, a wonderful asset for any city.

Steve

WOW, that is great. I wish some of the dead box stores here would be used like that. Looks great, a wonderful asset for any city.

Steve

And there's no lack of them: first Walmart abandoned its old, 1980s 40,000-60,000 square footers, then they left behind those 90,000-120,000 square foot stores they built 20 years ago in favor of their current 210,000 sq. ft. supercenters. Add all the shuttered Circuit City and Borders stores and the inventory gets mindboggling. Schools, libraries, fitness centers even factories can be carved out of these.

McAllen did an excellent job indeed with the hand they were dealt. :)

I think over the long term you will see more abandoned big box stores being retooled to fit other various functions, instead of just leaving that building abandoned and build further out especially as the cost of construction materials increase. Already I can think of several examples of former big box stores being retooled to suit other functions such as churches, cultural/educational centers, other retail, etc.

Anyways the library looks great.

Yeah. Near me is a small town that converted its 1980s vintage Walmart
into a new high school.

Before that it was a discount grocery store. It was closed down personally by Sam Walton not long after it opened because he was so disgusted on a secret visit after discovering a massive employee theft ring.

It's not a very nice town...

Sweet idea. Maybe when one of the Supercenter Wal-marts up here (and that's a big maybe for DFW where they're popping up faster than fading away) goes belly up, we can do something like this.

Given this had been a Walmart, here's a shot of what they did with the exterior:

http://constructbirmingham.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/mcallen-library-exterior.jpg
http://constructbirmingham.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/beautiful-solution/

How many Supercenter Wal-marts go belly up?

I didn't know Walmarts could die.

TIL Walmart's can shut down. Great work by McAllen in coming up with something creative to fill such a large space.

How many Supercenter Wal-marts go belly up?

I didn't know Walmarts could die.

TIL Walmart's can shut down. Great work by McAllen in coming up with something creative to fill such a large space.

If you are all referring at how the store that is now the library shut down, it technically just relocated to an adjacent lot (next to this building, crossing a small canal).

If you are all referring at how the store that is now the library shut down, it technically just relocated to an adjacent lot (next to this building, crossing a small canal).

Yeah, I looked on Google Maps and found it.

Still, what was up with that?

They probably wanted a larger store with more parking and that property didn't have the space, so they moved to a larger property which just happened to be across the street.

Not something you typically expect from Texas but it looks really good. If my family had moved to Brownsville when I was a teenager I'm sure I'd be spending a lot of time there. But I'm still glad we didn't. :lol: (Can't stand the heat.)

They probably wanted a larger store with more parking and that property didn't have the space, so they moved to a larger property which just happened to be across the street.

Not something you typically expect from Texas but it looks really good. If my family had moved to Brownsville when I was a teenager I'm sure I'd be spending a lot of time there. But I'm still glad we didn't. :lol: (Can't stand the heat.)

The library is located in McAllen, not Brownsville which is located 60 miles away. For all intents and purposes they are two totally different cities.

Anyways I guess Wal-Mart needed a bigger footprint for the store considering all the extra foot traffic from Mexico which necessitated a bigger store.

Yeah, I looked on Google Maps and found it.

Still, what was up with that?

They probably wanted a larger store with more parking and that property didn't have the space, so they moved to a larger property which just happened to be across the street.

Not something you typically expect from Texas but it looks really good. If my family had moved to Brownsville when I was a teenager I'm sure I'd be spending a lot of time there. But I'm still glad we didn't. :lol: (Can't stand the heat.)

The heat I think is the excuse people use to not go outside and do 'stuff'. :ohno:

The library is located in McAllen, not Brownsville which is located 60 miles away. For all intents and purposes they are two totally different cities.

Anyways I guess Wal-Mart needed a bigger footprint for the store considering all the extra foot traffic from Mexico which necessitated a bigger store.

I would assume they needed to expand the store and they got the city to give them a tax break (probably?) to keep it within their limits. Also, a Target store opened two blocks away (on the same street) from them.

Oh, and I think the Walmart (no hyphen anymore haha) that's on Jackson Rd. is the one that definitely needs to be renovated, the traffic in that one is horrendous (good for business though). To think that people don't really want to realize that all these stores they keep building is in grand part to the Mexican customers.

Photograph I took on Saturday.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8250/8485127258_3d5090e4f3_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/josekalel/8485127258/)
The McAllen Public Library (http://www.flickr.com/photos/josekalel/8485127258/) by Jose Moncivais (http://www.flickr.com/people/josekalel/), on Flickr

I always thought they were closer together. Brownsville is on the border by the sea. McAllen is just on the border.

Dead little walmarts are absolutely everywhere, I haven't lived somewhere that didn't have one. Occasionally they get chopped up into generic strip malls while the super store is down the street.

Of course a lot of small Wal-Marts get superized, too.

Photograph I took on Saturday.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8250/8485127258_3d5090e4f3_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/josekalel/8485127258/)
The McAllen Public Library (http://www.flickr.com/photos/josekalel/8485127258/) by Jose Moncivais (http://www.flickr.com/people/josekalel/), on Flickr

Hard to believe that was once a Walmart!

Hard to believe that was once a Walmart!

Harder to believe that some of us shopped there and that the store had been closed for a few years already.

As a side note, there's a waterfall/fountain in the circle shown in the pic...and as always (with my bad luck) the waterfall/fountain wasn't working. :no: