Mercado Cerrado

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In a somewhat shocking update to the Mercado 6/Big Kmart saga, the flea market in West Houston has bit the dust. The store which I visited on two separate occasions in the past few years, has been purchased and gutted. The news seemed to break early this year around the time I published my last update. A few online reviews noted that “the store” was closed, but I naively assumed this meant individual shops. Driving back to the future 7-Eleven from Sunday’s post I noticed the vacant parking lot and stopped to snap a few photos.

The doorways which were Kmart originals have been removed to allowed construction equipment to enter the building. Many doors in this structure were welded shut essentially forcing the demolition of this entrance. Much of the metal caging has also been removed from emergency doors.
The new owner is listed on this paper, but other than the fact that Mercado 6 closed there isn’t really any information. It seems like vendors weren’t told anything either.
Look straight back you can see that for the most part the structure has been gutted. A couple of lights have been installed to help construction, but these older Kmarts have almost no natural light.
Looking to the left of the entrance you can see that the loading docks have had their metal caging removed. The caging around the doors has also been cut open. It’s a bit scary to think what would have happened if this place ever caught fire during the flea market days.
Look up and into the ceiling you can kind of see where the central customer service desk would have sat. It would have been under the sideways metal framing.
This is pointed in the direction in which the KCafe sat. It would continue to operate as a snackbar mostly untouched from the Kmart days.
Moving down the building the next significant thing is the former Garden Center. This has been multiple things over the years, but was most recently an event hall for the Mercado.
This is where the Garden Center’s greenhouse sat. At one point it served as an outdoor gym. The fencing stayed up through much of the life of the building but was eventually cut down.
This display case was left by one of the tenants when they moved out. Looking online this does resemble some of the Big Kmart Jewelry displays. I can’t say so definitely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this unit was left behind when Kmart took over the Venture space.
The last remaining business on the property is the used car lot in the Southwest corner of the parking lot. This always operated separate from the Mercado. While there were outdoor businesses which leased space from the Mercado they were limited to opening on Saturday and Sunday.

Trying to look up what is going to happen to the building is unsuccessful. The company which bought the property was created solely to buy it. It does share an address with some other retail investment properties, but again it doesn’t point to much. From what’s going on inside it does look like the building shell may be saved, although we’ll have to wait and see if anything on the exterior is saved.

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