There is a certain irony in the national trend of converting former big box retailers and department store buildings into storage units. There are companies that now specialize in converting what used to be retail space into individual and business storage. One such company is currently working to convert the former K-Mart/Sears store here in Oshkosh into such a facility for U-Haul.
When you think about it, that business model really represents the full circle of American consumerism. Items purchased from now-defunct retailers are literally going back to the buildings where they were boughtto be put back on the same floor–because we don’t have room for all of our “stuff” in our homes.
There may be more of that space opening up soon at the Fox River Mall in Grand Chute. Younker’s will be closing due to the bankruptcy of its parent company, Bon-Ton. Sears is in its death throes. And JC Penney may not be far behind them–all victims of changing American spending habits–with on-line retail beating out brick and mortar storefronts. We may live to see that day that the mall becomes the largest storage center in the Fox Valley.
But I have an billion dollar idea for those soon-to-be-empty anchor stores: Vanity Storage. Rather than hide your stuff behind a cheap corrugated steel door, show off your items in bulletproof and shatter-proof glass-encased displays for everyone to see. You bought most of this “stuff” to be cool and appear hip and to impress other people–now you still can! Vanity Storage will provide mannequins in your size that can wear the cute dress you got for your cousin’s wedding–and never wore again. And all of the pants and shirts that used to fit–until you gained 40-pounds spending every day on the couch playing video games.
In the former furniture departments we can sell multiple adjoining cubes to show off the living room set you bought when Hildy got them for a house on the original Trading Spaces, which you replaced with the furniture that the Property Brothers put in that one house, which was replaced by the reclaimed retro items that Joanna and Chip bought for that one couple on Fixer Upper, which is about to be replaced by what Hildy just bought on the new Trading Spaces. It would be like an evolutionary display of what your house used to look like.
We would have spaces for the Espresso machine, the rice cooker, the vegetable steamer, the instant pot, French press and pannini grill that you bought because you were going to “learn how to cook”–but ended up ordering take out instead. Those could be paired with the stainless steel appliances you got–that were replaced a few years later by the black stainless steel that go better with the granite countertops in the “Dream Kitchen” displays.
We could even find space for all of the “classic cars” that you guys bought with every intention of fixing up into show-worthy rolling pieces of art–but that proved to be way too difficult to repair and maintain.
Vanity Storage could be a huge boost to the retail segment–as people see what other people have stored in their cubicles–and want to have better and more “stuff” in theirs. Or, retailers themselves could include that as part of their current business models–selling you an item and allowing you to come back a few days, weeks or months later to put it back on display in your cubicle. They could call it “reverse layaway”. Is there some way I can get a patent, a copyright or a trademark on this idea?
