Re: The plant after Packard

Posted by Leeedy On 2015/1/15 13:21:33

This photo is looking east on Grand Blvd. toward Concord Avenue. If you look straight down the sidewalk you will see the southern end of the Packard Bridge that crossed Grand Blvd. at Concord Avenue. Arlan's main front door was directly under the bridge. By the way, the store was only on the first floor of this part of the plant, not on the upper floors.

As I have said before here, the A&P grocery store was built on the site of the old Packard power plant building which was one of the very first things torn down when the plant closed and the property was sold off (unlike the stories of today that lead one to think the Packard Plant property is still all one thing-it isn't). The power plant was next to one of the railroad spurs that is argued about today. It was a huge brick building with a large smokestack that said "P-A-C-K-A-R-D" spelled out on the stack. Next to that was the petroleum depot for gasoline and oil used in new Packards.

I have also mentioned before that Arlan's Department Store moved into part of the plant. It was-as the photo shows-adjacent to the A&P. The parking lot for A&P resulted when the Power Plant was torn down and the land was cleared. Last time I checked, the A&P building was still standing but all boarded up and long abandoned. The grocery store itself sat on top of the area where some of the mountains of coal used to be piled for the Power Plant.

We used to shop At Arlan's all the time (it was cheap like Wally-world is today). It was one of the first big-box discount stores where things were brought in and pretty much dumped on tables-unlike most stores in those days.

Oddly enough, they had an automotive department along the left rear of the store behind the wall along Concord Avenue. IN that auto department you could buy new Packard tail light lenses going back to the 1940s. These came in bright yellow boxes with no Packard logos-as did tail light lenses for other brands of cars.

One of the former Packard employee's parking lots on the corner of Concord and Grand Blvd. became the customer parking lot for Arlan's.

Arlan's was later replaced by Kingsway Discount Department Store... which eventually went bust.