There's one of these next to a Circuit City (the late) in Downers Grove, Illinois. Sucks to be the building owner that leases to those two stores.

Yeah I don't know who these people are who buy $800 light fixtures that haven't changed since 1988. People who want that sort of high-end wares go to a specialty store.

Expo is one of those store that on my richest days still makes me feel white trash.

Hit and miss at Expo for me. If you ignore the really gaudy, expensive stuff, you can get some pretty good deals.

Dear lord, I can't wait to see what the liquidation prices are marked up to at this joint.

Ours closed back in the first wave. We did a big house remodel while they were here and I liked them. Not for the gaudy high end stuff - they had some nice basic and reasonably priced things too. There was a guy who worked in the bath area (non-custom) who tipped me off on specials and clearances whenever I saw him. Our new baths are mostly Expo stuff and we saved a lot of $$.

I worked for Expo for over 10 years. The stores always did poorly. They have talked of closing stores way back when times were good. Now they can use the economy as an excuse. Anyone who has worked for the company knew this was coming, It actually came later than expected. That's what happens when you overcharge people.

@AngrySicilian: Everyone I know always used that store for one thing. Knowing whether or not Expo was still open for business when we drove down I-88.

Anyone know about the fate of individual stores...especially the one in Veron Hill IL?

Well at least most who have these around them will know when they have closed. There was one near us that was there one day and the next it was covered up and gone. We almost put money down the day before on a toilet. Thank goodness we bought it at our local plumbing supply place that has been around for 50+ years. Good luck getting your "special orders". Not surprised.

Snobby butts will have to go elsewhere to buy their bidets and toilets.

@FrankGrimesJr: It took me three years of living in the western burbs to figure out how to actually get to the parking lot of that store... then another few months to figure out how to enter it.

I never found Expo to be gaudy at all. I in fact was designing my kitchen and bathrooms around their products. I've bought numerous thing from Expo and will miss the store a lot.

Yeah, I never understood the purpose of the Expo stores. I mean, it's really just a fancy Home Depot. People that have more money than brains will usually hire an overpriced designer to source all the building materials for their pimped out McMansion.

On the occasion I've wandered in to an Expo store, I've been extremely surprised at whether people actually buy any of the $400 lamps and fixtures. Seriously, a $400 table lamp? And it only looks a tiny bit better than the $30 lamp I got at Home Depot.

The Expo was a miserable shopping experience, who wants to buy expensive items by havin to wait 30-45 minutes to speak to a sales person to help you buy it.

There is one in the middle of Westwood, on the ground floor of the old Bullock's Westwood. Originally it faced a large empty lot, which then turned into the Pallazo Westwood construction site for a couple of years. I never could figure out why they opened a store there since UCLA students aren't doing a lot of home improvement projects. But the Ralphs grocery store and Best Buy in the same building are doing bang-up business.

The only thing I ever bought there was a kitchen faucet about 6 years ago. Definitely overpriced but it was something specialized I couldn't find anywhere else, including Home Depot.

So, now we can look forward to a liquidation sale where we can pick up a genuine crystal sputnik chandelier priced from $12,000 to $13,246? I'm so there.

@m2ky2fo:

Probably closing... It's usually pretty dead...

I thought Home Depot shut these down a few years back?

Home Depot products tarted up.

@m2ky2fo:

Well, since they are closing 34 stores, and it looks like they only have 34 stores, I'd say they are all gone.

Columbia, MD recently underwent a big retail boom, much to the chagrin of open space (you rock, rock) advocates & sprawl-haters. 3 developments & 2 years later, the new EXPO, Mammoth Golf, & Filene's Basement stores are closing, & I suspect that Krispy Kreme will follow. Great timing, & on behalf of the displaced wildlife & bulldozed terrain, thanks!

Purchasing quality plumbing fixtures is an important part of adding value to your home, as well as keeping maintenance costs low. Home Depot products especially, and even the Expo products, often feature many plastic and rubber parts, and poor finishes, and they break very easily. You can get top manufacturer faucets and toilets from plumbing supply houses starting around $150-200, and ranging much high, but it is a solid investment in your home.

Expo was mostly for people who thought being seen in a store like Home Depot was gauche and who were willing to pay a premium for being seen in something more upscale. Now it's actually chic to be seen at Home Depot so Expo no longer serves a purpose.

@Craig:

If that was HD's rationale for opening EXPO in the first place, then no wonder they're closing it down.

For reference, I'm pretty sure that EXPO was for people who wanted to give $ for comparatively upscale products in a showroom setting.

I always thought they had an excellent selection of lighting...and for less money than what I found online. However, I only bought there once because I did have to wait 20 minutes to find a guy to go to the back to get the items and another 40 minutes for him to come back. So yeah, the prices didn't scare me, but the lack of service sure did.

Ah, but if your'e holding out for the "reduced pricing" on the high end appliances held hostage by rhe resellers minimum pricing agreement, you MIGHT be able to walk out with a reasonable deal.....

@AngrySicilian: The intersection of Highland and 88 is a clusterfuck, especially since oncoming traffic gets a longer green.

Best to continue down 22nd, take a left at the Hooters and stop for some wings first :)

@AngrySicilian:

Yeah...I've been there once. Took me half the afternoon to find the front door and the rest of the afternoon trying to not to get lost in the place.

@madanthony: Yeah, that wasn't remarkably clear in either this story or the one I saw on CNN this morning or the one I heard on NPR this morning. "Closing 34 stores" implies there is a number of stores they are not closing rather than "closing all stores" or "going out of business."

I spent awhile trying to find a list of closing before I figured it out.

(If the liquidation is actually a good one, though, I'll be excited. I'm renovation right now.)

@AngrySicilian: There was a furniture store in between Circuit City and Expo that closed too, maybe 3-4 years ago. Add the CompUSA(?) across that street and the worst Best Buy parking lot ever, and that's one depressing strip of real estate.

Don't get me started on that Circuit City parking lot. The *one* time I shopped there we couldn't find the entrance and had to park on the lower level by the furniture store. One icy trek up to CC later, and I vowed never to go back. ;-)

@catcherintheeye:
And don't forget the Fry's nearby on Finley.
Where they always try to check your receipt!

My father-in-law took my wife and I through one in the Detroit metro area many years ago (he died in 2001), and I liked what I saw, once I looked past the $12,000 lamps, and saw the cool stuff they carried. I just wished that we had one in Minnesota, and now that'll never happen. Now I wish I had one close enough to look at the store closing deals. Hope they're better then Circuit Shitty.

I thought they'd closed a long time ago... there was one in Chicago that I used to go to, they had some nice stuff. But it closed several years ago. Too bad they couldn't make it work.

We used to go into Expo when we were doing our house remodel 8 years ago. Funny thing, though - we would go there to see the various products on display then would order the exact same items online at a significantly reduced price. HD Expo's prices were no bargain!

HD Expo did offer some installation and design services but those were always overpriced too. And in our experience, there were very few sales staff on the floor that were knowledgeable about their products.

Sears has a similar store concept called The Great Indoors. They still have one open here (across the highway from Expo), but it may only be a matter of time before that is gone too.

Tried to buy kitchen appliances & a complete bathroom from them. We wasted over 3 hours with a salesman going over the display items only then to be told that they couldn't guarantee delivery on most items for 3 months!

They had my friend who works there down to 10 hours a week (from 30) since late November, maybe even early November.

The writing has been on the wall there for a few months now.

Most of the people can afford the crap in Expo Design Centers tend to hire interior designers, who can buy them higher end, better quality, to-the-trade-only products for the same price. That's probably why they never did so well.

People - its FAR worse than that.

We had gone in to order two stock cabinets (color matched items we already had). These are those little 1 foot by 3 foot cabinets which go over refrigerators. No custom work needed, and was ordering in their stock color.

We were told we could not make such a purchase without a $850 custom design fee (which would be credited against any purchase of $10,000 or more).

Turned around, walked out, and never looked back (although this was about a year ago).

The Home Depot Expo saved my butt when my kitchen faucet fell apart. Apparently black faucets are pretty rare and the only one I could find was at a Home Depot Expo. Our neighbors had a similar problem (great quality sinks those builders put in) and they had to settle for a chrome faucet for their black sink.

I never understood how people could bend down so low to drink out of them bidet water fountains.

The only Expo I recall shutdown several years back.

Sears' version of EXPO, The Great Indoors, has about 10 days left here in NJ. It looks like they're being liquidated by the same people who are doing Circuit City.. and ironically, the strip mall the local TGI is in has a CC two stores down.

I'm going tomorrow morning to grab some store fixtures, they have some good deals on small tables, etc for $5 each.. The large floor rugs are 70% off with a large selection left, so there will probably be some good deals to be had in the last few days on those at least.. But the scores of floor-model appliances are still at ludicrously high prices. People who want to spend $7k on a fridge probably aren't going to be frequenting liquidation sales.

The floor model TV's sitting in the electronics department are still more expensive than anything you can get online as well.. Gee, I'd love to buy an open-box TV with 5,000 hours of use for an above-retail-price, thanks!

Cool place to window shop if you ever wanted to know how to turn a shower into a Borg alcove - but alas, I only shopped in its bargain bins.

Although they had some high priced stuff, they had a lot of normal stuff too-- Bought a real nice ceiling fan there, with Italian glass for like 150.. a little high but not any more than HD or Lowes.. just a nicer item... I loved all their cabinet handles- they had some real wacky ones...

I could see about 10-15 years ago before computer programs and a 'virtual' view of your plans but now every artist,architect and contractor has access to this stuff .As does the public .

Design work made a lot of jobs for artists who didn't want to commit to architecture or engineering of some kind .The party's over .

I'm sorry to see it go. We do a lot of DIY projects, and have bought quite a few things there. I thought they had a great tile selection. I know that some of the stuff was pretty pricey, but they really did have a MUCH higher quality selection than the local Depot or Lowes. We would walk through there once every couple of months just to get ideas.