Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by klkla »

storewanderer wrote:What type of condition is the Oakland Park location in?
It was in pretty rough shape last fall. I got the impression it only existed because the Publix across the street was so busy that there was no place to park so they get the overflow.

It looked like it may have had a half-ass remodel but a lot of the equipment and floors appeared to original from 1980's.

Customer service was awful. The guy in front of me bought water that was on sale from an end cap at the front of the store but the price rang up differently. The cashier snapped back at him that he had to buy six other specific items in order to get the sale price but the signage didn't indicate what the six items were. The guy just through his arms up in frustration and left without buying anything.

The deli and bakery were awful, as well.
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by storewanderer »

Sounds about like my experiences in Clearwater and Largo. Cashier in Clearwater said nothing at all to me the whole transaction. I only had one item but still. I understand when a store closure is announced the employee attitudes tend to suffer. Cashier in Largo snapped at me to unload my basket (I had three items...) before she would start to ring me up. She was pleasant enough after that and had a 20 years pin on but I wasn't exactly happy with the service. Contrast this with Altamonte Springs where I was greeted by a manager walking through the store, greeted by deli when I was looking, and greeted by bakery when I was looking.

I was surprised how awful bakery/deli looked in Clearwater and Largo as that is usually a stronger point for Albertsons LLC. Somehow the store in Altamonte Springs seems to be getting it right; I wonder how. There was a Publix across the street from it too. Customer traffic was about equal between the two stores and so was staffing. But the Albertsons has quite a bit more square footage than the Publix so I am guessing the Publix is probably more productive.

Also I noticed Altamonte Springs appears to have had self checkout in the past based on the configuration of the front end. It did not appear either Clearwater or Largo ever had self checkout. But Largo had something like 13 checkstands which is the most I've ever seen in an Albertsons (had 5 open in the afternoon when I was there).
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by pseudo3d »

arizonaguy wrote:
storewanderer wrote:http://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/blo ... elift.html

It looks like they plan to keep operating 3 stores in FL if they will be spending money on remodeling. I'm glad to see them staying though it is a strange move. I didn't know FL was still a division. I thought it was rolled into Dallas Division. A Division with 3 stores?

I think the stores are just supplied by SuperValu down there so distribution wouldn't be an issue. Maybe quality control is... They switched to Flavorite private label before the Essential Everyday rollout.
Sidney Hopper is the president of the Houston division. Apparently, Houston and Dallas (which is named the Southern divison) are two separate divisions with the Houston division taking Austin, Houston, the southern Louisiana ,and Florida stores where the Dallas (Southern) division controls most of the Dallas area stores (except for the Market Street stores) as well as the stores in Northern Louisiana and Arkansas.

There are probably 3 potential strategies at play here:

1.) They're keeping the stores around as they have several years left on their leases and they're profitable enough that it makes more sense to keep them open rather than close them while still owing for the lease. Kroger did this in the Phoenix area with many of the "redundant" stores from the combination of Fry's, Smith's, and Smitty's in the late 1990s.

2.) They're trying to reposition these stores for a sale, and a remodel makes them more attractive to a potential buyer / buyers.

3.) They're looking to expand and are looking at potentially acquiring nearby stores or an entire other retailer (similar to all of the store closings and contractions in Texas and then the subsequent purchase of United, which expanded its presence).
I'm thinking #3. You would only do #2 if you're prepping a sale of the whole chain (arguably why American Stores started to re-invest in ACME in the 1990s), and doesn't make sense: supermarkets aren't homes. Any new owner would do renovations do themselves.

#1 did seem like the most plausible option for a while, but as the three are still alive, the effort required in keeping them (renovations, trucking from Houston) seem even more strange.

My guess is #3, which seems more likely after the A&P purchase.
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by storewanderer »

It was my understanding for a while the FL Stores were being supplied by Supervalu somewhere as independents. They were selling Flavorite rather than Albertsons brand back before the Essential Everyday rollout across all of Supervalu's independents/corporate stores.

Now I look at the FL Albertsons ad and I see they have all of the Safeway brand items in there so it looks like they are indeed supplying those stores now from some sort of company center in I assume Texas, as it appears the FL and LA Albertsons are running the same basic ad at this point.

Hard for me to understand how it makes any sense for them to supply three stores from such a long distance away and I'd think perishable quality has to be impacted. They clearly must be planning on buying more stores in FL. Maybe they want to buy Winn Dixie? I get the feeling Albertsons/Safeway wants store count and seems to want to prove themselves as the biggest. We all know how that went in 1999. Big egos and stores customers didn't like. Will history repeat itself?
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:It was my understanding for a while the FL Stores were being supplied by Supervalu somewhere as independents. They were selling Flavorite rather than Albertsons brand back before the Essential Everyday rollout across all of Supervalu's independents/corporate stores.

Now I look at the FL Albertsons ad and I see they have all of the Safeway brand items in there so it looks like they are indeed supplying those stores now from some sort of company center in I assume Texas, as it appears the FL and LA Albertsons are running the same basic ad at this point.

Hard for me to understand how it makes any sense for them to supply three stores from such a long distance away and I'd think perishable quality has to be impacted. They clearly must be planning on buying more stores in FL. Maybe they want to buy Winn Dixie? I get the feeling Albertsons/Safeway wants store count and seems to want to prove themselves as the biggest. We all know how that went in 1999. Big egos and stores customers didn't like. Will history repeat itself?
A recent Tampa Bay article confirmed that it is the Randalls DC in northwest Houston that is supplying the stores. However, I think it's mostly the non-perishables being shipped in, perishables may have smaller distributors...Florida didn't even have a DC itself until the early 1990s. I don't think that Albertsons/Safeway wants store count...they're not building stores en masse everywhere like they used to, in fact, the new Albertsons seems to avoid building new stores altogether and new markets. Three things are not going on:

- Building ~50k square foot stores in especially questionable locations
- Purchasing a bigger company (American Stores was twice as expensive as Safeway, not counting for inflation)
- Rebranding hundreds of stores to a new brand and new demographics
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by arizonaguy »

I think that the new Albertsons will build new stores in existing markets if they see the right opportunity to do so. United has built a decent number of new stores (for the size of the division) since Albertsons has owned them. ACME has also built a handful of stores. They would rather expand though by buying stores from other competitors however (like the opportunistic purchase of the A&P stores to complement the ACME division, the purchase of select Dominick's stores to convert to Jewel-Osco, and the purchase of Raleys stores in New Mexico).

They may buy stores in Florida (or the rest of the Southeast) if someone like Winn-Dixie sells them (at the right price).
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by arizonaguy »

pseudo3d wrote: A recent Tampa Bay article confirmed that it is the Randalls DC in northwest Houston that is supplying the stores. However, I think it's mostly the non-perishables being shipped in, perishables may have smaller distributors...Florida didn't even have a DC itself until the early 1990s. I don't think that Albertsons/Safeway wants store count...they're not building stores en masse everywhere like they used to, in fact, the new Albertsons seems to avoid building new stores altogether and new markets. Three things are not going on:

- Building ~50k square foot stores in especially questionable locations
- Purchasing a bigger company (American Stores was twice as expensive as Safeway, not counting for inflation)
- Rebranding hundreds of stores to a new brand and new demographics
I agree with the above however I think that the new Albertsons will build new stores in existing markets if they see the right opportunity to do so. United has built a decent number of new stores (for the size of the division) since Albertsons has owned them. ACME has also built a handful of stores. They would rather expand though by buying stores from other competitors however (like the opportunistic purchase of the A&P stores to complement the ACME division, the purchase of select Dominick's stores to convert to Jewel-Osco, and the purchase of Raleys stores in New Mexico).

They may buy stores in Florida (or the rest of the Southeast) if someone like Winn-Dixie sells them (at the right price).
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by pseudo3d »

arizonaguy wrote:
pseudo3d wrote: A recent Tampa Bay article confirmed that it is the Randalls DC in northwest Houston that is supplying the stores. However, I think it's mostly the non-perishables being shipped in, perishables may have smaller distributors...Florida didn't even have a DC itself until the early 1990s. I don't think that Albertsons/Safeway wants store count...they're not building stores en masse everywhere like they used to, in fact, the new Albertsons seems to avoid building new stores altogether and new markets. Three things are not going on:

- Building ~50k square foot stores in especially questionable locations
- Purchasing a bigger company (American Stores was twice as expensive as Safeway, not counting for inflation)
- Rebranding hundreds of stores to a new brand and new demographics
I agree with the above however I think that the new Albertsons will build new stores in existing markets if they see the right opportunity to do so. United has built a decent number of new stores (for the size of the division) since Albertsons has owned them. ACME has also built a handful of stores. They would rather expand though by buying stores from other competitors however (like the opportunistic purchase of the A&P stores to complement the ACME division, the purchase of select Dominick's stores to convert to Jewel-Osco, and the purchase of Raleys stores in New Mexico).

They may buy stores in Florida (or the rest of the Southeast) if someone like Winn-Dixie sells them (at the right price).
ACME hasn't built any new stores in a while actually. They did decide to tear down and rebuild one of the stores on the Jersey Coast, but does that count? I don't think it does, really. United is the only one actually doing new builds, building a store in Alamogordo (under the "Albertsons Market" name, previously planned) and Brownwood, TX (under their own name).

It would make sense for Albertsons to cool off on stores, since they already have a substantial number of markets and should improve them before building more.
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by storewanderer »

There are some new projects in the pipeline at Safeway. I think Albertsons had about 12-15 new stores planned for 2015.
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Re: Clearwater, FL Albertsons Closing May 28

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:There are some new projects in the pipeline at Safeway. I think Albertsons had about 12-15 new stores planned for 2015.
Where did that number come from? I know that Safeway still had a few projects they wanted to do (they wanted to build a Randalls in Leander, TX for the last few years, but they only broke ground on it this year--possibly because Safeway was planning sell off Randalls prior to Albertsons' announcement of purchasing them).

As far as I know, the following *new* Albertsons/Safeway stores opened this year, not counting Safeway pre-merge:

- Albertsons Market (Alamogordo, NM), opened January 2015 under United division
- Safeway (Bellingham, WA), opened Febraury 2015 in former Cost Cutter
- United Supermarkets (Brownwood TX), opened June 2015

There might be a Safeway in Hawaii I'm missing, but other than that, I think that's it. Renovations seems to have picked up though.
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