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Last year, I went to a Target in Moreno Valley, Ca that still had the original interior from when the store opened in the 80's:

The brown motif, dark interior with a lot of low hanging ceilings.

Anyone remember these old interiors. I also wonder if this store is still like it.

The store in Northridge, CA, was a former Gemco and still had its vintage post-Gemco interior until about a year ago, when the store was torn down and rebuilt. I guess the figured there was no point in remodeling if it was going to be demolished soon.

Wow, I hadn't thought of Gemco in years. There was one in San Gabriel where I grew up that my family frequented weekly to do our grocery shopping and other shopping needs. I believe that too had become a Target for a while, it's been 21 years since I lived in Southern California so who knows what it is now. I was just visiting my parents a couple of months ago, but didn't venture out that way, but the way things are in that area, it's probably a Chinese Market now!

Skimolopez wrote:Wow, I hadn't thought of Gemco in years. There was one in San Gabriel where I grew up that my family frequented weekly to do our grocery shopping and other shopping needs. I believe that too had become a Target for a while, it's been 21 years since I lived in Southern California so who knows what it is now. I was just visiting my parents a couple of months ago, but didn't venture out that way, but the way things are in that area, it's probably a Chinese Market now!

you hit it right on the nose.

I used to go to the San Gabriel Gemco growing up, later Gemco.

The Target there closed about 6 years ago after the owners of the building wanted to raise the rent on the building by $100,000 a month (plus the rent it was already paying). Target said no way, and after the new year, closed for good.

Today its the San Gabriel Super Center, a chinese market and shops. Target would build a new store about 2 miles to the east in Rosemead, where the former Montgomery Wards was.

Does anyone have any pictures of old Target interiors? My first visits to Target were in 1989 as they were inherited Gold Circles in NC, and for their own built stores, 1994, when they first opened in the Washington area. I don't know much of what old Target looks like, although old Wal-Mart and old Kmart I have seen much of.

Target stores historically used red interiors. Very very red. Signage, depending on the era, would be red with white text, or white with black text.

In the late eighties and through the nineties, Target used a grey interior with waves of colored neon through different departments. This was also used to code areas of the store for calling employees to some area. Accents have progressively moved upscale over the years. I actually worked at a Target in 1992.

The newest Target stores are going more and more red as the primary color in their interiors with modern upscale accents.

I can't even picture the Target interior that started this thread. I've never seen such a thing.

Early 80 stores were brown.

Montana had two Target stores open in 1982 (Great Falls and Billings). Both had dropped ceilings over the main walkways, with signs at each intersection with arrows pointing toward other departments. All the signs were white, with a red grid (graph paper look) background, and black lettering. The walls were a light gray/white color with no neon, but red frames running around the perimeter of the stores.

Growing up in San Gabriel, I also shopped at the Gemco on the corner of Valley and San Gabriel Blvds. (I lived on New Avenue just north of the freeway.) When they went out of business in 1986 we went there several times a week looking for deals. In fact, we bought a microwave during that sale that was still in service until a few weeks ago.

It became a Target shortly before I graduated from high school, then I went away to college so I didn't see much of it during its life as a Target.

It was Target's takeover of the former Gemco properties that really gave them a foothold in the LA area. Previously the closest Target was in northwest Alhambra (a former FedMart) and we hardly ever went there.

There was also a "Target Greatland" concept that started around 1994 or so. My brother did a fireworks display for the opening of one of the first, if not the first one, in Apple Valley, MN. The Greatland color scheme was red and green, I think the outer circle of the logo was green instead of the usual red. The fireworks display featured all red and green shells. They spent at least $2500 on it.

Greatlands had two entrances instead of one like most Targets, so I assumed when I first saw them that they would have food in one side. But no, they were just a bigger Target with the same merchandise. SuperTarget didn't come along until a few years later.

In Lou, there's an odd Target at Hubbard's Ln and Westport Rd. that has 2 entrances and the interior arrangement of a Greatland, but it never had the Greatland name or color scheme. None of the 3 new Targets here are Greatlands nor do they have the dual entrances.

Greatlands had the red logo, the Greatland text was in green. There are quite a few Target Greatlands in the Washington area, one of their strongest markets now, which they entered in 1994, the first locations were all Greatlands, in Woodbridge/Potomac Mills, Germantown and Sterling. Columbia was about the same age. Glen Burnie, Owings Mills and White Marsh were early Baltimore area Targets.

Until about 1994, Target used red, green and blue tiling on the exteriors of stores. This became all red after this point.

As for the Target stores w/2 entrances looking like Greatlands without the name, they are Greatlands, but the Greatland name isn't being used. The Target that opened in Charlottesville, VA in July 2005 is like this. It only has Target signage, but 2 entrances.

So how do you tell the difference between a Greatland and a regular Target? Just by the 2 doors? I used to think that Greatland had housewares on the backmost wall and clothing in the middle while regular Target had clothing along one side and housewares in the middle, but they keep rearranging our Targets to fit a few groceries in and keep moving the stuff like plastic bags & laundry detergent so I don't know any more.

There is one Greatland in Fullerton down here, and one Regular Target that just opened in Whittier, that both have the same interior floor plan, both have two enterances.

The only difference is that Whitter's new store has no Greatland designation. But same layout, same food areas, pharmacy, etc...

The best target ever to go to is the Pasadena store in the old Robinsons Department store. Two levels with enterances on both levels from the structure.

...so what exactly makes a GREATLAND different?

In Richmond, we had Greatlands as the first Target entry into the market. They recently built a new Target near me, so my choices are now regular and Greatlands I suppose. The new store has one entrance, but the layouts, though similar in some ways, differ enough so that it takes a little effort to find things in the regular store than in the Greatlands store.

For example, electronics are in the front to your left in Greatlands, in the back left corner in the regular store.