As of about half an hour ago, both Blockbuster stores in West Seattle are closed. At least one of them – Admiral – is reopening tomorrow for a “liquidation sale,” but no more movie rentals at either one. We’d heard rumors about the Fauntleroy store closing (confirmed by the flyer for its “for lease” listing, though Blockbuster corporate PR did not answer our inquiries) but hadn’t heard Admiral was closing too till a note today from Martin sent us out to check in person. An employee at Fauntleroy told us around 3 pm that it was their last day of renting movies, but she wasn’t sure when the store was shutting down; we headed to Admiral, where at 3:55 pm, a note on the door said they would close at 4 pm and reopen for the liquidation sale at 11 am tomorrow.
Circled back to Fauntleroy after that – and a sign had appeared on the door between our visits: CLOSED. (No word of any reopening, but we’ll take a look tomorrow.) Note that the note at the Admiral location says the nearest still-open store is the one in White Center. That’s also the store to which people in Burien are being pointed, according to this report about Blockbuster’s impending shutdown there. The troubled video-rental chain was bought by Dish Network earlier this year. The two Blockbusters were the last standalone video-rental stores in West Seattle, though offline movie rentals are still available by other means, such as supermarket counters and Redbox machines. (P.S. Looks like other areas of the country are seeing closures too – Google News Search shows a multitude of recent stories.)
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