Suburban superstores can and should adapt to urban environments such as Manhattan. The writer says the new Home Depot in Chelsea is a good model:

The new Home Depot, which has 105,000 square feet in a basement, ground floor and atrium, has the right components of a street-smart store: home delivery; bus and subway nearby; no parking but help hailing taxis; and interesting windows that seek to attract pedestrians passing by. Offices occupy the upper floors. All these elements are not dissimilar to the great retail emporiums before suburban malls sucked them out of Main Streets everywhere.

K-Mart, on the other hand, has a lot to learn:

Kmart, for example, opened on 34th Street in 1996 but instead of offering eye-catching displays for the thousands who walk past it every day, the windows look onto cash registers, wheelchairs and shopping carts. And while Kmart, to its credit, also opened in the old Wanamaker’s Department Store on Astor Place – a smart reuse of another old department store that even has a subway-level entrance – there are no street-friendly windows.

A short, interesting piece.