Safeway to renovate Moon Valley store in Phoenix

[pseudo3d]

Safeway has been in AZ since the 1920s (when it was known as Pay N Takit)...Albertsons has only been here since 1990. Safeway does well here because they are often the only big store in the small AZ towns where Walmart won't go into because of size. Which means the Albertsons name will probably go away in a few years

Safeway may end up keeping the name in smaller markets, just as City Market can be found in smaller towns but not Denver. Furthermore, just because Safeway has been there longer doesn't mean the Albertsons name needs to go away...and unlike, say, Tom Thumb in Dallas, it doesn't have truly local roots.

I honestly don't see the Albertsons name surviving in Arizona.

There are 34 stores operating in the state under the Albertsons banner and approximately 109 operating under the Safeway banner.

Over the next couple of years, at last 6-7 more stores will be closed as there are several locations where an Albertsons / Safeway are across the street from one another or within 1 mile of one another.

Unless they intend to differentiate their product mixes and format (which they appear to be doing exactly the opposite as the Safeway stores in Arizona are becoming Albertsons in all but name) it makes no sense to advertise and maintain 2 separate banners.

Furthermore, most of the Albertsons stores in Arizona are in need of significant capital. The renovations that were done (if the stores were renovated at all) were mainly to repaint some walls and move some pharmacies from the center of some stores to the perimeters. Other than that, the stores weren't touched. The floors and ceiling tiles at most Arizona Albertsons locations are in dire need of replacement. In addition, some locations operate multiple brands/models of shopping carts that are also severely worn out and need to be replaced.

Due to the need to extensively renovate almost all of the Arizona Albertsons stores, it would make sense that while the stores are undergoing renovations, they also become rebannered into Safeway stores (which aren't in need of capital) as the Safeway store in Arizona that was in need of renovations the most is the subject of this thread.

Even if the Albertsons name fades in Arizona, Albertsons Cos. isn't going to do anything hasty yet. The Safeway we're looking at will probably get the new LLC remodeling package, as by now, Lifestyle is now a decade old too. I suspect some of the stores that Cos. wants to keep will get the remodeling package or fall by the wayside, whether it's better locations or so on (I'm sure the discrepancy in the numbers was because of the smaller Albertsons getting divested to Haggen).

The fact that they're remodeling this as a Safeway (and, by extension, restoring the original names to the Haggen stores they're buying back in the Northwest) means that Albertsons isn't going to rock the boat yet...a wise decision, considering what happened with converting Lucky stores.

Kroger knows not to operate multiple brands in a single market.

With two notable exceptions:

Southern California: Ralphs / Food4Less
Washington State: QFC / Fred Meyer

Yes, but those go for different markets. With "upscale" and "downscale", you can have both...that's why there was Vons and Pavilions in the California area. But when you have a mid-market Safeway (or other brand), and an Albertsons, it doesn't make sense to operate both.

[jamcool]

City Market and King Soopers in Colo are basically the same format and co-advertise. City Market operates west of the Rockies and King Soopers is along the Front Range

[klkla]

Kroger knows not to operate multiple brands in a single market.

With two notable exceptions:

Southern California: Ralphs / Food4Less
Washington State: QFC / Fred Meyer

Yes, but those go for different markets. With "upscale" and "downscale", you can have both...that's why there was Vons and Pavilions in the California area. But when you have a mid-market Safeway (or other brand), and an Albertsons, it doesn't make sense to operate both.

I agree it doesn't make sense for them to have Albertsons/Safeway in same areas and have stated that in previous posts. I was just pointing out that they do in fact operate multiple brands in a single market.

Also, I wouldn't call Fred Meyer downscale. They're more value-oriented than QFC but not downscale in the same way as Food4Less. And as for the Vons and Pavilions brands, they have both been essentially mid-market for a number of years and even run the same ads now. There's very little differentiation any more.

[pseudo3d]

I didn't realize that Vons and Pavilions homogenized so much. Makes sense tho as the "Flagship" name for the Texas division became meaningless under Safeway. And maybe "downscale" isn't the word to use for FM.

On topic, has anyone been inside this store since they started renovating? I really wanna know what décor package they're using (the latest LLC décor package has of course multiple variants, most of the renovated ACME stores seem to have gotten the more basic versions)

[storewanderer]

Vons and Pavilions became completely the same in the past few years. During the run of lifestyle store remodels Safeway did in mass, they actually had a slightly different lifestyle decor for the Pavilions and the typical lifestyle Pavilions had more "features" than the "average lifestyle store." Things like nut bars, or warming plates for cinnamon rolls in bakery, or the large fire/hearth ovens for bread in bakery, those features got thrown into (most?) all of the Pavilions but got thrown into very very few of the other lifestyle stores.

Also in center store Safeway included more specialty items in the Pavilions than usual but again you could find some standard banner lifestyle Vons or Safeways with even more specialty items than those.

More recently toward the end Safeway was doing "center store remodels" where they did things like put in those white backlit shelves in drug and did some general remerchandising and resetting and put up new aisle hangers but they did not change out the decor- except in the Pavilions. In the center store remodels the Pavilions all lost their upgraded decor and got the generic lifestyle decor every other Safeway had been getting for the past 7 years.

[SamSpade]

Kroger knows not to operate multiple brands in a single market.

With two notable exceptions:

Southern California: Ralphs / Food4Less
Washington State: QFC / Fred Meyer

Oregon: QFC (Portland metro) / Fred Meyer
Idaho: Fred Meyer / Smith's (Twin Falls, Idaho Falls)

[storewanderer]

Isn't there some Harris Teeter/Kroger overlap somewhere in the Carolinas too?

I always found it odd when two Kroger divisions, supplied by completely different distribution centers and with rather different quality perimeters, competed with one another.

[arizonaguy]

Isn't there some Harris Teeter/Kroger overlap somewhere in the Carolinas too?

I always found it odd when two Kroger divisions, supplied by completely different distribution centers and with rather different quality perimeters, competed with one another.

I'm pretty sure they overlap in Raleigh-Durham, NC and in Virginia in the Charlottesville and Hampton Roads areas (although Richmond is all Kroger and Northern Virginia is all Harris-Teeter). In South Carolina Columbia is all Kroger and Charleston is all Harris-Teeter.

It seems like Indiana has a lot of overlap as well.

Arizona was a mess after the Kroger / Fred Meyer merger. They has stores operating under the Fry's, Smith's, and Smitty's banners. Then Kroger decided to rebanner the Smith's stores as Fry's (except for the stores in NW Arizona) and the Smitty's stores as Fred Meyer Marketplace. Then about a year or so later they decided to rebanner the Fred Meyer Marketplace stores as Fry's Marketplace. However during the rebannering they didn't do much of anything with the store interiors. It seemed that every other Fry's store had a different interior until the late 2000s. Now they're standardizing on 3 interiors: the "Ralph's Fresh Fare" interior for the Signature stores (including the Signature Marketplace), an interior that I will call the standard Kroger interior for all stores bannered as Fry's Food and Drug, and the Fred Meyer/Marketplace interior for the stores bannered as Fry's Marketplace.

I've never understood why they keep the NW Arizona stores bannered as Smith's when the rest of the state is bannered as Fry's. Although, in this case both Fry's and the AZ/NM/NV Smith's all use the same distribution center (which was originally built by Smith's).

I understand that the Southwest division still has 2 distribution centers: one in Tolleson, AZ (the former Albertsons distribution center) and one in Tempe, AZ (the former Safeway distribution center). I am curious if they plan to combine these. Right now it appears that the Albertsons bannered stores are being supplied out of Tolleson (hence the fact that up until recently Essential Everyday products were prevalent) whereas the Safeway bannered stores are being supplied out of Tempe. One challenge may be that the Tolleson distribution center has some room to expand however the Tempe distribution center is landlocked. The Tempe distribution center also houses a Safeway dairy plant.

[storewanderer]

Same distribution issue in every market where Safeway and Albertsons overlap. The banners are still being supplied by their original distribution centers.

Albertsons did make some changes after buying Supervalu: started to supply Denver Stores (previously LLC Southwest/Arizona supplied) through Intermountain in Salt Lake City, and started to supply Las Vegas (previously SoCal supplied) and Saint George (previously Salt Lake City supplied) through Southwest/Arizona).

Safeway did make one major closure of its "CPS" distribution center in Sacramento earlier this year. I believe that center supplied drug and slower moving items (candy, natural foods, etc.) to the stores. I know they started to use a third party (Kehe) for specialty items but I think the others are just coming from other Safeway distribution centers now.

[pseudo3d]

Arizona was a mess after the Kroger / Fred Meyer merger. They has stores operating under the Fry's, Smith's, and Smitty's banners. Then Kroger decided to rebanner the Smith's stores as Fry's (except for the stores in NW Arizona) and the Smitty's stores as Fred Meyer Marketplace. Then about a year or so later they decided to rebanner the Fred Meyer Marketplace stores as Fry's Marketplace. However during the rebannering they didn't do much of anything with the store interiors. It seemed that every other Fry's store had a different interior until the late 2000s. Now they're standardizing on 3 interiors: the "Ralph's Fresh Fare" interior for the Signature stores (including the Signature Marketplace), an interior that I will call the standard Kroger interior for all stores bannered as Fry's Food and Drug, and the Fred Meyer/Marketplace interior for the stores bannered as Fry's Marketplace.

I've never understood why they keep the NW Arizona stores bannered as Smith's when the rest of the state is bannered as Fry's. Although, in this case both Fry's and the AZ/NM/NV Smith's all use the same distribution center (which was originally built by Smith's).

I understand that the Southwest division still has 2 distribution centers: one in Tolleson, AZ (the former Albertsons distribution center) and one in Tempe, AZ (the former Safeway distribution center). I am curious if they plan to combine these. Right now it appears that the Albertsons bannered stores are being supplied out of Tolleson (hence the fact that up until recently Essential Everyday products were prevalent) whereas the Safeway bannered stores are being supplied out of Tempe. One challenge may be that the Tolleson distribution center has some room to expand however the Tempe distribution center is landlocked. The Tempe distribution center also houses a Safeway dairy plant.

Smitty's changed hands several times in the 1990s, and I believe the Fred Meyer Marketplace came when it was bought by Fred Meyer but not yet Kroger. Kroger renamed them to Fry's (having already owned the brand) and cancelled plans to bring full FM stores to Arizona.

Albertsons probably has plans to combine the divisions somehow...they were supposed to have some sort of corporate HQ in Phoenix (where not only Safeway SW is, but the accounting department, something Albertsons itself lacks since that sort of back support job was outsourced to SuperValu). They have closed down the Vons offices in Arcadia, and have stated plans to sell off some of the SWY DCs in the West Coast (including both original Vons DCs) while leasing them back short term.