Target Midtown’s redesign is complete and balance has been restored to the universe — sort of

The overhaul is part of the company’s $7-plus billion investment in remodeling more than 1,000 locations across the country by 2020.

The next-generation store design, first unveiled at Shoptalk back in 2017, includes drive-up lanes for online orders, enhanced merchandise displays and majorly upgraded beauty, home and grocery departments that feel like standalone shops.

It also includes a tumultuous transitional period during which the store stays open and shoppers lose their sense of direction and also their minds.

There are nine Target stores in Charlotte proper but perhaps none with a client base more dramatic and emotionally charged than those of us at Midtown.

You would have thought they’d stripped us, blindfolded us and sent us into the fluorescent wilderness naked and afraid.

In our defense, the moves were substantial. Grocery and electronics are pretty much the only departments that were left largely untouched and still feel familiar. Everything else is uncharted territory.

The beauty department is in the same general vicinity but looks like an Ulta with fancy center-aisle displays and a swanky new men’s section for all your gendered motor oil and sawdust-scented soap needs.

Clothing, accessories and fitting rooms have shifted into the center of the store with department store-style displays that make it feel a bit like a trip to the mall.

Pet supplies are in the back near the rotating seasonal display, and home goods now dominate the far right wall pretty much from the entrance to the back of the store.

Now that Midtown’s redesign is complete, shoppers can settle into their new normal.

Still can’t find what you need? You could ask a store employee, of course, or just do the millennial thing and download the Target app. It includes a map and search feature that can tell you down the aisle where each product in the store is located.

God speed, Magellan.

Sure, Target remodels are dead last on the list of crises currently plaguing the human population, but it’ll definitely still impact your everyday shopping routine when it reaches your store. Stonecrest, you’re up next.

A rep told me over the phone that the Stonecrest store at 9870 Rea Road will begin its remodel in July. Buckle up and bring a map.

Oh, and one more gripe. Are Target execs totally sure this glorified hot dog stand with microwaved pizza is a next-generation offering? Because somehow it has risen from the apocalyptic ashes of the Midtown remodel fully unfazed and untouched like the cockroach that it is.