Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

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pseudo3d
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Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

http://www.montereyherald.com/article/N ... /170819989

From the looks of it, it looks like Safeway is getting the lease from the landlord and they expressed interest in keeping the employees, but did Safeway and the landlord work to kick out Nob Hill for whatever reason, or is Raleys giving up on the location? It definitely looks like it had a full life...
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by storewanderer »

This sort of thing makes the position of Raleys look a little bit strange. A similar thing happened probably 20 years ago in Fair Oaks with a long-standing Bel Air on Dewey. Safeway was able to muscle the lease away from Raleys, but in that case, the entire shopping center was demolished and rebuilt.
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

I'm not familiar enough with Raley's, but have any Nob Hill stores opened in the last 10, 15, 20 years? Maybe Raley's is to the point of not renewing leases and Safeway grabbed this one. The question is if Safeway will operate it "as is", renovate it with a new décor package, or just give it a cheap version of Lifestyle...
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by storewanderer »

I believe a couple new build Nob Hills have opened in the past 10-15 years but a lot more locations have closed. Raleys should have done well in the bay area... I think at the time they bought Nob Hill in the late 90's and had some maturing stores of their own in the bay area, they made the mistake of buying those Las Vegas and Albuquerque Albertsons and instead of focusing some resources to really build up their network in the bay area, they threw good money after bad in Las Vegas and Albuquerque...

In the 00's, I'd have said the Nob Hills were too small for Raleys, as they typically were smaller 30,000 square foot type stores with no pharmacy and limited drug. And from the mid 70's through the 00's, Raleys new builds were easily 65,000+ square feet "superstores." But now, with Raleys new builds at about 40,000 square feet and no more pharmacy, suddenly those Nob Hills aren't such a size gap anymore...
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:I believe a couple new build Nob Hills have opened in the past 10-15 years but a lot more locations have closed. Raleys should have done well in the bay area... I think at the time they bought Nob Hill in the late 90's and had some maturing stores of their own in the bay area, they made the mistake of buying those Las Vegas and Albuquerque Albertsons and instead of focusing some resources to really build up their network in the bay area, they threw good money after bad in Las Vegas and Albuquerque...

In the 00's, I'd have said the Nob Hills were too small for Raleys, as they typically were smaller 30,000 square foot type stores with no pharmacy and limited drug. And from the mid 70's through the 00's, Raleys new builds were easily 65,000+ square feet "superstores." But now, with Raleys new builds at about 40,000 square feet and no more pharmacy, suddenly those Nob Hills aren't such a size gap anymore...
The Bay Area is a tough market to make it in. I seem to remember reading that few, if any, pre-1999 Albertsons existed there. After all, even Kroger gave up on the Bay Area when it sold Cala/Bell off. While I agree that things like the Albuquerque stores (which ended up being sold back to Albertsons) were a strategic mis-step, trying to significantly alter the Nob Hill format (or even name) in a Bay Area-focused expansion may have had mixed results.

In any case, this looks like a pretty good location. There's a Safeway about 1.2 miles away that's not much larger but almost back-to-back to a Trader Joe's, as well as a Lucky (this looks to be an original Lucky but received a major expansion when it was an Albertsons). Given Safeway today, I'll doubt they'll end up closing it.
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by storewanderer »

In 1999, Albertsons had just a few stores on the fringes of the bay area but I think you could say they were very viable locations. They tended to cluster a few locations close together probably to help spread advertising costs. There were no "island" stores.

Dublin (70's store), Livermore (80's store), San Ramon (mid 90's store)- all sold to Ralphs. Livermore is a Nob Hill today that retains the Ralphs interior. Dublin is a small Ranch 99. San Ramon is a Wal Mart Neighborhood Market.

Two in Vacaville, if that is the bay area... both are now Lucky.

One in Monterey (Del Rey Oaks) (now Safeway), Capitola (now Whole Foods), Salinas (now FoodsCo) and Watsonville which was a large late 90's store in a former Kmart (now Safeway)- all sold to Ralphs.

Also one in Petaluma (archaic old store, was sold to an independent, did not last long, think part of it is a Trader Joe's now), then these others which all sold to Ralphs: two in Santa Rosa (one is now Lucky, one is now an independent), one in Sonoma (now Whole Foods) and one in Napa (now Whole Foods).

Notice a pattern? These are all still grocery stores. I think they were pretty good locations, actually.
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote: Notice a pattern? These are all still grocery stores. I think they were pretty good locations, actually.
Quite a contrast from late 1990s/early 2000s Albertsons...
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

A day after the announcement, Nob Hill Foods posted this on the store's Facebook page.
It comes with great regret that we share the news- our Nob Hill Foods Monterey will be closing. We are working on the exact timing with the landlord and will let you know as soon as we can.

We have been trying to renegotiate the lease for nearly a year, but have been unsuccessful in reaching an agreement. The landlord of the property has unfortunately made an agreement with a new tenant – another retailer.

These types of situations are never simple, as we know closing a store impacts both our team members and our customers. We will work to transfer as many team members as possible into available open positions. We have long been a part of Monterey County, and will continue to be here serving customers from our Nob Hill Foods store in Salinas.

https://www.facebook.com/nobhillfoodsmonterey/
Either the landlord was trying to force out Nob Hill for whatever reason or Nob Hill was trying to lowball the rent. Since this was Nob Hill's perspective, they wouldn't say anything that would make them look bad, so we may never know the real story.
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by lola42 »

My recollection is Nob Hill's lease was expiring this year.
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Re: Safeway to take over Monterey Nob Hill

Post by pseudo3d »

lola42 wrote: October 11th, 2017, 6:46 pm My recollection is Nob Hill's lease was expiring this year.
Right, but why didn't they renew?
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