The Marsh supermarket in Van Wert, Ohio, opened in 1981 and closed in 2017. The store was purchased out of bankruptcy and became a Chief Supermarket.
“Abandoned Marsh” was my project to stylistically document the Marsh Supermarkets closed by Sun Capital Partners, an investment firm that owned the home-grown company for the final decade of its eighty-six year history. The last Marsh supermarket closed in 2017.
The company’s stores built from around 1980 to 2004 or so were easily identifiable because of their angular greenhouses and dark brick massing. Instead of taking pictures of the buildings, I decided to create 18×24 vector files in Adobe Illustrator, focusing on the complexity of their angles and how shadows and highlights interacted with them.
I wonder if this is the one I remember visiting a few times in the 70s, or if it’s a new one.
I remember the Chief supermarket in my grandma’s town of Paulding. I could never have guessed that little Chief would outlast gigantic Marsh!
It was a surprise! The company that owns Chief operates the Needler’s stores around central Indiana.
Do you happen to know what was in the building before Marsh bought it? Doing some reminiscing with my 93 year old grandma who grew up there! 🙂
Hi Meghan, I want to say Marsh built it, but I’m not sure. I’ll do some research and try to get back to you!