Hardware Stores
2 stores in this category.
Builders Square was Kmart's foray into the warehouse home-improvement business, a chain of big-box hardware and building-supply stores meant to compete with the rising Home Depot. Kmart struggled to make the format work and sold it off; Builders Square was merged with Hechinger under a single owner in the late 1990s. The combined company was no match for Home Depot and Lowe's and was liquidated in 1999.
Hechinger was the Washington, D.C. region's dominant home-improvement chain, its orange logo and 'The World's Most Unusual Lumber Yard' slogan familiar to generations of Mid-Atlantic do-it-yourselfers. As Home Depot and Lowe's expanded the warehouse format, Hechinger was bought by an investment firm and merged with Builders Square. The combined company couldn't keep up, went bankrupt, and liquidated all of its stores in 1999.