Meijer Coming to Detroit

[animatedmartian]

What you say makes sense. So I just looked at the layout again that Parkguy posted and it appears that the only thing preventing the store from being built against the street is the gas station. You could build the store along the street and still have ample room for entrances and exits to the parking lots that would keep traffic off of the side streets... if it weren't for the gas station.

Well, IMO, they don't need the gas station to begin with. That's just something that Meijers will use to get extra revenue rather than having extra retail space that may or may not sit empty.

They could replace the gas station with another retail block but either way the main building will be in the back away from the street. It has to stay in a similar physical shape as most other big box stores for design and interior layout reasons.

Had this been a design for Corktown or Downtown or somewhere closer to the inner-city where space is limited and valuable, then yes you'd be right about them putting the store up against the street. But since this is primarily residential area with low capacity streets with only one or two major roads, the current design makes the most sense.