I’ve died and gone to Target heaven…

Last week one of the gals at work told me some VERY exciting news: the Target two towns over – which has been closed for at least a year due to “remodeling” – had finally re-opened. But the REALLY exciting part was that this newly re-vamped Target was supposedly a SUPER TARGET, with a full-scale supermarket in it.

So yesterday morning I cajoled the hubby into going over there with me (a rare occurrence, believe me!) and we were both suitably impressed. First off, the store is HUGE; it spans about ¼ of the top floor of a newly developed shopping center. At left is an artist's rendering of the store before it was completed. When you walk in, you immediately go upstairs - either via stairs, the escalator or super-size elevators (made to accommodate at least 4 shoppers with carts at a time). While we were heading up, I noticed that one side of the building is entirely made of windows, allowing natural light to flood that side of the store.

The next thing I noticed is that the entire space is laid out like a classy department store. Meaning: the aisles are wide, there is plenty of room to navigate between racks in the clothing departments, and the merchandise is attractively displayed much like it would be in Macy’s. Case in point: as soon as we walked in we came upon a Hollywood Intuition display of merchandise that was spread out on low, oak shelving with special signage (vs. just on regular wire racks in the accessories department like I’ve seen it at every other Target). When spread out this way, the merchandise just begs to be touched and considered. Case in point: in the Men’s Department, there were more low oak shelves with shirt, tie and sweater combinations displayed that frankly I probably would have walked right by had they been on a regular rack. Even my husband got into the act, picking up both a candle holder (in the Home Department) that we totally didn’t need, but was so wonderfully displayed that we were tempted to.

The Fresh Grocery Section was impressive by the breadth of offerings made available in relatively a small space. There was a limited variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, an array of meats and poultry, and even a deli/salad case. I thought that this section was going to be larger; it’s definitely not a big as a regular supermarket, but the selection was wide enough that I could probably do all my shopping there (unless I was looking for something really specific). The regular Grocery Section was another story; aisles and aisles of pantry staples. Plus, come to think of it, a pretty hefty refrigerated/freezer section. So I guess on a whole, the “Grocery Store” within the store probably took up 1/6 of the entire store space.

As I told my hubby, this brand new spankin’ store has ruined all other Targets for me. It’s gonna be hard to shop at the Target near my home or the one near my work now, because they just pale in comparison. I’m already plotting how to fit a visit in on my way home from work today; if I take an alternate route, it’s on my way home. ;-)