Target dropping "Super" in Utah?

[SamSpade]

Photo in Riverdale, UT remodel
It looks like this store is being turned into the Target pFresh department after the remodel. The store will also close at 11 pm instead of midnight like most other Utah SuperTarget locations.

Riverdale is one of the stores in Utah where Walmart has built a supercenter a stone's throw away and has seen other retailers leave over the years (Macy's, for example). It might be this location only, as photos online clearly show a remodeled store and food floor in Orem, Sandy and Fort Union (Not sure which city this store is in officially) locations.

The other SuperTargets in Utah are in:
Centerville
Layton

[Brian Lutz]

There is also a Super Target in Sandy near South Towne Mall.

[flyinpenguin]

I wish they would get their act together in Utah. None of these Super Targets have been touched extensively since opening, with the exception of Fort Union. The Sandy store is slowly turning into a ghetto ghost town. Terrible customer service, long lines, and the fact they take the deli meat into the back to slice bugs me to no end. I'll have to check out that Riverdale store since remodel. What did they put in place of all those departments?

[architect]

It looks like this store is being turned into the Target pFresh department after the remodel. The store will also close at 11 pm instead of midnight like most other Utah SuperTarget locations.

Riverdale is one of the stores in Utah where Walmart has built a supercenter a stone's throw away and has seen other retailers leave over the years (Macy's, for example). It might be this location only, as photos online clearly show a remodeled store and food floor in Orem, Sandy and Fort Union (Not sure which city this store is in officially) locations.

The other SuperTargets in Utah are in:
Centerville
Layton

Several years ago, Target had developed a list of 10-15 stores internally which received significant cost-cutting measures (dubbed "Pathway to Profitability") as a last ditch effort prior to closure. Several of these were Supers, and included at least 3 stores in the Atlanta area and one in Phoenix. For the SuperTarget locations, the perishable departments were kept intact, but all product was brought in prepackaged (so essentially the service bakery and deli were shut down while still being visible to the customer, basically an oversized Pfresh store). Store hours were also cut, and staffing was reduced to barebones levels. Out of the SuperTarget stores, only one has closed that I know of (in Alpharetta, GA, a mid-2000's Super built in the middle of a residential corridor, in a location not conducive to big box traffic), so something seemed to work here.

Looking at the Utah SuperTarget locations, it appears that both the Riverdale and Centerville locations have no remodel work since opening, especially when compared to the other stores across the area which at least received remodels sometime in the late 2000's. As a result, my guess is that the Riverdale store has been underperforming for some time, and Target is making the decision to eliminate full grocery as a cost-cutting measure to hopefully avoid closure. It will be interesting to see if Target implements this strategy at other stores/markets. In particular, I know of two SuperTargets in DFW where this might make sense, as they both seem to have perpetually low traffic.

[storewanderer]

I always forget about Super Target in Utah. That was actually one of the first Super Target markets, as I recall. I think they had Super Targets there before Denver, for example.

I think the issue is the Utah market is a bit crowded. Most operators there are price focused. There is only so much demand for groceries, and I can see how Target has lost ground in Utah in recent years with new WinCos, new Sprouts, new Smiths, existing Smiths getting better, etc.