Retailers Bet Wrong on America’s Feelings About Stores
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The Bass Pro Shops is bigger than you think it will be. This is true of all of the outdoorsy retailer’s locations, but it’s especially true of the one retrofitted into a 32-story metal pyramid on the banks of the Mississippi River. Located in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, the mammoth structure once held an arena for the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies. Now it houses the largest Bass Pro Shops in the world, a hunting-, fishing-, and camping-gear store that has been merchandised with Disney-level production values and expanded to encompass a hotel with more than 100 rooms, a wild-game-themed outpost of the Wahlburgers restaurant chain, several enormous lake sturgeon swimming in shallow pools between departments, and at least three live alligators, among other things.
