Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

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pseudo3d
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by pseudo3d »

architect wrote:
pseudo3d wrote:
architect wrote:
Although Market Street attempted to duplicate Wegmans typical store format, their stores are more conducive for "in and out" runs since their stores see much lower traffic on average. Although Market Street is arguably the best Albertsons-owned concept right now, the stores still fail to touch Wegmans' or Central Market's "destination" status simply due to their generic private label selection. On the other hand, most Central Market locations are treated as "destination" stores in a similar manner to Wegmans, and are typically filled with shoppers even at off-peak times (the Lovers/Greenville location in Dallas and the Westheimer location in Houston are prime examples, with an expansion planned for the Houston store to accommodate this heavy traffic). On the whole, CM's perimeters are extremely high quality, although the selection is very different from what you would expect in Chicago or New York simply due to regional taste differences. In particular, their bakery quality is arguably the best of any grocer in Texas, while their produce selection is also very extensive.
Market Street can't really match up to Wegmans anyway I would say because they are much smaller stores than Wegmans. Granted, they are decent sized (~70k square feet) but that hardly comes close to Wegmans 75k-140k square foot formats. Build a 100k square feet (or larger) Market Street, and we'll start talking.

Central Market I would say is destination but completely counter-intuitive to "in and out" not just because of the massive crowds but because of the extremely linear nature of the store where you're forced into every department. I should scan my directory of it sometime and show you guys if you don't know what I'm talking about...it isn't like a normal grocery store.

Secondly, I would also argue against Central Market's perimeters being that great...some of the bakery items were the exact same stuff that I saw at H-E-B (oh, there's fancier items, too, don't get me wrong) and that exact same stuff isn't worth writing home about. (I can't speak for the meat and seafood, though)
I definitely agree with you on Central Market's stores having an excessively linear nature. To put them into perspective, their stores are designed like your typical IKEA, with a maze which weaves through every department along with "shortcuts" for those who know their way around. These shortcuts are typically placed where most shoppers will pass right by them unless you have discovered them. Even their Preston/Royal store in Dallas (a converted Marina Safeway, complete with restored wood beams) has this design, despite the store's small size. HEB has also maintained this practice at some of their larger mainstream locations too (The Woodlands Market in the Houston area and Brodie/William Cannon location in Austin both come to mind), and it is one of the only things I tend to dislike about HEB.

Also, I am curious if the Central market bakery offerings are skewed differently in DFW since there are no traditional HEB stores in the area. Most of my Central Market experiences have been in DFW, but I have visited the Houston location on several occasions and both Austin locations one time each. On the whole, the DFW stores have an interesting mix, as the perimeter departments skew noticeably higher-end than the locations in other parts of the state, yet the center-store aisles are also filled with more HEB branded items to make up for the fact that there are currently no HEB stores to sell these products at otherwise. Also, the selection surprisingly varies from store to store (especially the Coit Road and Lovers Lane stores, despite having almost identical floor plans). It would not surprise me if these "typical HEB" bakery items you are describing are not carried at the DFW stores simply due to the fact that the distribution network for these items is not in place yet.
I speak from my experience with an Austin CM, but I think that if they have Central Market stores in Dallas they at least have some DC network in place. They don't have the resources yet for a full roll-out of H-E-B stores in Dallas but it isn't too hard to send the same frozen products up for bakery.

And no, despite the fact that some regular H-E-B stores do tend to force you in a pattern near the perishables starting with produce (the H-E-B in College Station at Holleman and Texas Avenue did this, though a renovation eliminated the "produce maze", it isn't nearly as complex as Central Market is. I also tend to remember that the Austin store had a fairly low ceiling painted black, giving it all the more appearance of a darkened maze.
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by storewanderer »

The layout was why I thought the CM was not good for a quick in and out. The CM I went to was in Dallas somewhere near Mockingbird area. I remember the produce seeming quite good with some unique varieties of apples I had not seen before elsewhere. To me the store didn't feel overly spacious and sort of felt like a "get through here" type of place. Not a store to linger or spend hours in.

There is also some cross in items between Mariano's and Pick N Save on perimeter.
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by architect »

storewanderer wrote:The layout was why I thought the CM was not good for a quick in and out. The CM I went to was in Dallas somewhere near Mockingbird area. I remember the produce seeming quite good with some unique varieties of apples I had not seen before elsewhere. To me the store didn't feel overly spacious and sort of felt like a "get through here" type of place. Not a store to linger or spend hours in.

There is also some cross in items between Mariano's and Pick N Save on perimeter.
Oh wow, you most have visited the Lovers/Greenville Central Market (it is one cross street north of Mockingbird), which is a madhouse at all times of the day. This store is packed, mainly due to being the closest upscale grocery store to the Park Cities and Lakewood areas, along with a large apartment community to the northeast attracting many young professionals (The Village Apartments). On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, the parking lot often fills up completely (including the parking lots for adjacent businesses). Since there are no traditional HEB stores in DFW yet (outside of the far southern suburbs), many of the Central Markets in the area become hubs for weekly shopping runs due to the selection (albeit limited) of HEB branded items which they carry. As a result, the shopper base is an odd mix of 1) destination shoppers who spend 2 hours in the store or 2) shoppers who come in for 5-10 items, and want to be in and out in 10 minutes. In all honesty, this makes the traffic flow both in the parking lot and the store itself a mess. It will be interesting to see how this store's traffic is affected if traditional HEB's are built throughout the Metroplex.

Side note, the Tom Thumb across the street is also very high traffic, and in my opinion is one of the best managed locations in the chain. There is also a very successful Kroger at Mockingbird & Greenville to the south, which is one of the original Signature concept stores.
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by storewanderer »

Yes that was the one! I remember going into the Tom Thumb (think it had 3 checkouts open when I went) and the Kroger (which had someone playing a piano inside while I was there and was somewhat busy). The Central Market was quite a zoo, difficult to move through due to all the customers. I remembered being very surprised with their low center store pricing. Very abbreviated mix, but great prices on basic items.
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by SamSpade »

So I was in the Safeway in Beaverton in the Murray Scholls Marketplace today. The center is getting a GRAMOR Development facelift (meaning it will look like the Whole Foods center further down the road) and I thought the Safeway was under renovations. Safeway has no equipment/trucks/etc nearby now. Well, guess what they did? THE LIGHTING. And, obviously "no one looks at the floor or the ceiling in a grocery store" must be in their heads - the ceiling looks horrid. They covered all the can lighting in the tiles with CARDBOARD. At first I thought it must have been wood or something substantial but if one looks carefully, you can see the wording on the cardboard box.

Image

The one blessing in this store was that it still had self checkout, which was being heavily used. If that were out, I think it really would be tragic.

I guess the company is doing something right, Safeway is very busy despite Walmart neighborhood market, Whole Foods, New Seasons being nearby. I visited the Albertsons in this area a bit ago, but that's its own thread.
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by storewanderer »

I am no electrician but I would think covering those can light fixtures with cardboard may be a fire hazard but maybe they cut or moved the wiring away from them in the ceiling.

I'll take the mood lighting any day over this.

They don't seem to know what to do with the self checkouts. The self checkouts are not compatible with the new point of sale system (including Chip card readers) so they have removed self checkouts from pretty much all of the lower and medium volume stores. The only stores left with self checkout are the very highest volume locations since they don't know what to do. It is a problem they are having to shoulder credit card fraud, impose gift card transaction with credit card limits due to fraud concerns, etc. at their very highest volume stores due to the situation with self checkout. I have heard they may have a few stores with self checkout that are able to process Chip cards but for some reason they have not rolled it out extensively and are blaming lack of system compatibility for their ongoing removals of self checkout. I think the best solution would be to try to get the old system to take Chip cards (that same old system took Chip cards up in Canada until Sobeys ripped it out just fine so I don't think it should be a problem to do the same thing in the US).

Why they didn't just make the self checkouts compatible with the new point of sale system which is just an upgraded version (with far slower interface) of the old one, (or get a different self checkout provider that would work with the newer system) is a mystery.
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by Alpha8472 »

Someone at the corporate office needs to wake up. They are spending money to make their stores look worse.

I have been to Safeway stores near me that have the new system, accept chip cards, and have self-checkout. The very busy 24 hour Pleasant Hill, California store is one example. I don't know how they do it, but everything works fine at that store. Although, at night they turn off their self-checkout machines. The lines are long even with self-checkout. Perhaps, it is all a bunch of lies about self-checkout not being compatible with the new system. There is another very busy 24 hour Safeway in nearby Walnut Creek, that does not have chip card readers yet. That store has self-checkout and is a very busy store. If self-checkout were removed the lines would be insane! Literally, this store is already crowded beyond capacity. That is why a new Safeway in Walnut Creek was built very close to this existing store. For some reason the new store is still not doing much business. The new store is not 24 hours and is empty most of the time. It closes at 1AM, accepts chip cards, and does not have self-checkout. There is only 1 cashier on duty at night. The lighting in the new store is all LED and very bright. It looks fine, since it is consistent throughout the store. I have noticed that the new store features lower pricing on many items than the busy Safeway nearby. Perhaps, they are desperate to get more customers.

Is it an Albertsons thing to have nearby stores with completely different pricing structures? I have heard that Jewel-Osco does this with some stores being high priced, while other nearby stores are lower priced depending on the neighborhood.
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by Super S »

SamSpade wrote:So I was in the Safeway in Beaverton in the Murray Scholls Marketplace today. The center is getting a GRAMOR Development facelift (meaning it will look like the Whole Foods center further down the road) and I thought the Safeway was under renovations. Safeway has no equipment/trucks/etc nearby now. Well, guess what they did? THE LIGHTING. And, obviously "no one looks at the floor or the ceiling in a grocery store" must be in their heads - the ceiling looks horrid. They covered all the can lighting in the tiles with CARDBOARD. At first I thought it must have been wood or something substantial but if one looks carefully, you can see the wording on the cardboard box.

Image

The one blessing in this store was that it still had self checkout, which was being heavily used. If that were out, I think it really would be tragic.

I guess the company is doing something right, Safeway is very busy despite Walmart neighborhood market, Whole Foods, New Seasons being nearby. I visited the Albertsons in this area a bit ago, but that's its own thread.
That picture, complete with the one lone recessed fluorescent fixture, reminds me of some of the unremodeled former Pay 'N Save stores still out there where they ran strips of fluorescent fixtures directly below defunct mercury vapor recessed fixtures without removing them. It could be that somebody else is going to replace the tiles and then repaint/remodel though. Some contractors will not do anything above the basic installation of lighting
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by architect »

Super S wrote:
SamSpade wrote:So I was in the Safeway in Beaverton in the Murray Scholls Marketplace today. The center is getting a GRAMOR Development facelift (meaning it will look like the Whole Foods center further down the road) and I thought the Safeway was under renovations. Safeway has no equipment/trucks/etc nearby now. Well, guess what they did? THE LIGHTING. And, obviously "no one looks at the floor or the ceiling in a grocery store" must be in their heads - the ceiling looks horrid. They covered all the can lighting in the tiles with CARDBOARD. At first I thought it must have been wood or something substantial but if one looks carefully, you can see the wording on the cardboard box.

Image

The one blessing in this store was that it still had self checkout, which was being heavily used. If that were out, I think it really would be tragic.

I guess the company is doing something right, Safeway is very busy despite Walmart neighborhood market, Whole Foods, New Seasons being nearby. I visited the Albertsons in this area a bit ago, but that's its own thread.
That picture, complete with the one lone recessed fluorescent fixture, reminds me of some of the unremodeled former Pay 'N Save stores still out there where they ran strips of fluorescent fixtures directly below defunct mercury vapor recessed fixtures without removing them. It could be that somebody else is going to replace the tiles and then repaint/remodel though. Some contractors will not do anything above the basic installation of lighting
Wow, this is embarrassing to see. Although these new light fixtures with trim look substantially better than the bare-bones fluorescent strips being used in some other markets (Dallas, Houston, Arizona and Colorado for sure), the holes covered with cardboard just look sloppy. In many of the Texas stores where the ceiling tiles were not replaced, the existing light fixtures were left in place (and disconnected) as to not leave a gaping hole in the ceiling. This would allow someone to come through and replace the tiles and remove the existing fixtures without having to do any electrical work, which could all happen at a later date, and would not require a licenced electrician. At a few stores, this has remarkably been done. Also, just FYI, these ceiling tiles are manufactured in the color which is requested by the client, and are not meant to be painted after manufacture as this reduces the acoustical-treating qualities of the panels. Maybe this is the reason why these tiles have yet to be replaced, as Albertsons may be attempting to find an exact match for the existing tiles (or is planning for new decor which would involve replacing the tiles anyway)?
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Re: Safeway lighting disaster comes to the northwest

Post by Super S »

architect wrote: Wow, this is embarrassing to see. Although these new light fixtures with trim look substantially better than the bare-bones fluorescent strips being used in some other markets (Dallas, Houston, Arizona and Colorado for sure), the holes covered with cardboard just look sloppy. In many of the Texas stores where the ceiling tiles were not replaced, the existing light fixtures were left in place (and disconnected) as to not leave a gaping hole in the ceiling. This would allow someone to come through and replace the tiles and remove the existing fixtures without having to do any electrical work, which could all happen at a later date, and would not require a licenced electrician. At a few stores, this has remarkably been done. Also, just FYI, these ceiling tiles are manufactured in the color which is requested by the client, and are not meant to be painted after manufacture as this reduces the acoustical-treating qualities of the panels. Maybe this is the reason why these tiles have yet to be replaced, as Albertsons may be attempting to find an exact match for the existing tiles (or is planning for new decor which would involve replacing the tiles anyway)?
I have personally seen instances of where they installed bare white colored tiles and then painted over them. Especially in older stores where the ceiling largely remained in place. This is not limited to Safeway, a few stores where I have seen this are Fred Meyer, Kmart (who simply repainted old ceilings white), Burlington Coat Factory, among others. In some cases this is also done in older buildings such as schools.

In many cases they will use new tiles which have a similar but not exact pattern as replacements on an as-needed basis (roof leaks etc.) I have seen cases where a store was added on to and the whole addition had a different pattern.

Painting tiles has mixed results.
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