It Used to be an Ames: Tractor Supply, Ocean State Job Lot, Dollar Tree in Griswold, Connecticut

The Plaza as it stands today.

This is the start of a blog sub-series called "It Used to be an Ames", where we look at stores or plazas that used to host an Ames Department Store. For those who don't know, Ames was a New England based discount department store chain that ceased operations in 2002. While some stores are still abandoned, most were turned into other stores. The first one we're going to look at is this plaza in Griswold that used to solely be an Ames.

INFO: Located off of exit 22 on Interstate 395, This Ames closed with the rest of the chain in 2002. It sat abandoned for a couple of years before some tenants took up the vacant space. According to some photo albums on The Ames Fan Club website, Ocean State Job Lot opened up for business here in either late 2004 or early 2005. I don't know exactly when the other tenants opened up here. I find it interesting that this three store plaza used to be home to only a single Ames.

PICTURES: 

The plaza in it's entirety.

A better view of the whole plaza

Tractor Supply and Ocean State Job Lot, which takes up a good chunk of the plaza.

Tractor Supply on the far left.

Ocean State Job Lot, Which is most likely the main attraction here, although Tractor Supply does get a fair amount of customers here. Dollar Tree usually is the least busy of the three tenants, which is probably due to the fact that there's two Dollar Tree's in nearby Norwich.

Here's a link to some photo albums of this plaza when it was an abandoned Ames, and when the plaza was new on Ames Fan Club. A fair warning, the albums are pretty hard to access, because most of the time you get an error screen when you try to actually open the album. I  you can get to the photos though, they're pretty cool!

LINK: http://www.amesfanclub.com/getstore.php?ID=43

That's it for this blog. I'll talk to you all soon!

-Simpsonfan311