WSS opened its holiday pop-up Friday on Fulton Street. Photo by Gabriel Dillard

The WSS holiday pop-up store in the former Fallas Paredes location in Downtown Fresno was unveiled Friday.

The location is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Whether the temporary WSS store becomes a permanent fixture at 1136 Fulton St. remains to be seen. Messages left for WSS’s corporate headquarters in Gardena were not returned Friday morning.

The storefront — vacant for the last couple months — includes a basement and two retail floors. Only the first floor had inventory Friday, with several rows of shoeboxes stacked for sale as well as clothing and accessories.

 

WSS, formerly Warehouse Shoe Sale, has around 100 stores mostly in Southern California, with two existing locations in Fresno and one in Visalia. WSS employees are known to greet customers at the door, but shoppers are otherwise allowed to browse for everything from work boots, sneakers, skate shoes and more.

Foot Locker closed a $750 million acquisition of WSS last year — a deal motivated in part by the chain’s “customer base rooted in the rapidly growing Hispanic community,” according to a news release announcing the sale.

WSS has opened a number of holiday pop-ups in California in the last couple weeks, according to social media posts, including Van Nuys, San Jose, Baldwin Park as well as Forth Worth, Texas.