What had started to become a community blight has been transformed into an amazing and highly used community space.
A whole bunch more photos are available on their smug mug site. They have built it out rather incredibly awesomely. They have a theatre!
This is the best re-use I've yet seen. They took an empty shell and created something far, far more than it had ever been originally intended to be (a purveyor of low-end pre-landfill Chinese made schlock).
Good on you, McAllen, Texas. I don't guess I'll ever be in the area (Texas and I had a falling out a few years ago, something about human rights trumping asshole governors or something) but I would stop by and say hello if I ever found myself there.
And yes, that would be the ONLY Walmart building I will ever set foot in.