Blockbuster Store in Dearborn Closing; Sign says New Restaurant/Lounge Coming ‘Soon’ on Michigan Ave.
Sunday, November 1st, 2009
The Blockbuster store at 22914 Michigan in Dearborn is closing.
Dearborn’s Blockbuster video store on Michigan Avenue in west Dearborn is closing its doors, one of the nearly 960 stores the Dallas-based company plans to close by end of 2010.
Struggling against stiff competition form Netflix and Redbox, the video rental chain is shrinking its operations by more than 20 percent to save money and keep its lenders happy.
The move to close the west Dearborn store at 22914 Michigan, just down from Kroger in the strip mall located on the north side of Michigan at Nowlin, really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Most people these days either don’t have time for videos or simply are using Netflix, pay-for-view or checking them out for free at the library. Combine that with prices that continue to drop to purchase movie DVDs and the future doesn’t look so bright for the video rental company.
What will move into this large vacant space is anyone’s guess but it will bring to at least three the number of vacancies in this strip mall, which has plenty of free parking.
A new restaurant/lounge appears to be headed into the former Venue nightclub building.
Just east of the closing Blockbuster about four blocks away on the same side of the street, it appears a new restaurant/lounge could be moving into the building that once housed the Venue nightclub.
A sign in the window at the rear of the building, located at 22048 Michigan near Monroe, simply says it is “coming soon”.
Just what length of time applies to the word “soon” is anyone’s guess.
The definition of “soon” has been a rather nebulous one at Norm Newman’s vacant Inca and Pier 1 building where a sign has been promising a “redevelopment” since February. Same is true of the Fatburger sign promising “coming soon” on Hakim Fakhoury’s building at Military and Michigan.
Even so, we will gladly take a “coming soon” sign in a window over an empty one any day of the week, regardless of how squishy the word might be. The “soon” at least represents hope and west Dearborn needs a bit of that right now.