So as part of a summer road trip up to Washington, I drove through Bend, OR. Although my main purpose was not to check out the Safeway at The Forum with Colorful Modern, I knew since I was in the area that I should check out what the commotion is about with the Safeway version of the new Upland Albertsons decor package. I also checkout out the other area Safeways as well while I was at it (I find it interesting Bend can support 4 Safeway's and one Albertsons all in a somewhat smallish city, that also has Fred Meyer, Walmart Supercenter, Costco, and Target, Whole Foods, along with some smaller grocery chains.)
I certainly had high expectations for this Safeway based off of my impressions and it did not disappoint. Here is my take and some observations on this store in comparison to the Upland Albertsons:
-The wall graphics and textures were well executed. While I feared that this decor package would not look as good in an older Safeway/Vons, especially with the drop ceiling, it actually helped since the wall decor went all the way up to the ceiling and filled almost the whole space with about a foot in between where the graphics ended and the ceiling, unlike the Upland Albertsons with the exposed ceiling, with the wall decor ending several feet before the ceiling.
-This store also had murals like the Upland stores, however in the cart corrals of both vestibules. The both have the phrases "hello Bend welcome... Sincerely, Safeway" and the Safeway logo was present on the other walls of the vestibules.
-Throughout the store, like Upland, there was little to no use of the Safeway logo anywhere outside of the vestibules. In fact, the Upland store had more brand identity than this store with its singular Albertsons logo. The front wall behind the registers pretty much has the exact same signs as the Upland store: "Local and loved," and "Your neighbor since...." Speaking of neighbor, the word "neighbor" also is heavily used in this store.
-Pretty much everything that would be Walmart Blue in the Upland Albertsons is bright red in this Safeway. Instead of the blue squares on the aisle markers with a number, they are red squares. The check stand lights have red accents instead of blue, and the fixture hung above the check stands also has red accents.
-Seeing the location of this Safeway, it makes sense why they chose this one out of the other four in the city to use this new decor package. This shopping center also has Costco and Whole Foods within a stones throw away, hence why this Safeway needs to aggressively compete. That being said, I believe a larger Costco is being built on the north end of town to replace the Costco that is next to this Safeway, and since not much land is available for large stores in Bend proper, I imagine Walmart (or even Target or Fred Meyer?) could scoop up this soon to be available Costco for a second Bend location. Walmart has plenty of experience taking over old Costco buildings.
-One of the few things that I dislike about this remodel is that this store still hasn't gotten rid of the lighting that has been used in the store since this store was remodeled to Lifestyle long ago. I wish Albertsons would just replace the lighting in all these old Safeway stores with the slim LED light strips, which were used in the Upland store.
-The heavy use of red in this store does make me question if the Upland Albertsons is really designed as a post-merger decor package (speaking that I feel it is so unlikely at this point, but you never truly know until it is all settled). If this store were to become a Ralphs or a Vons, it would have made so much more sense to use the red used in this Safeway. That being said, I do guess all the blue fixtures could be switched out for red ones, the blue walls painted red, and the little blue squares on the aisle markers with numbers could be easily taken off and replaced with red ones, and I'm sure it may at most take a couple days, I imagine they could probably do all that in a day... oh yes and I forgot! Replace that one panel with an Albertsons logo to a fruit cart
Here are some photos I took of the store:
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... Cv45MGE94A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... p5SrgyR-MQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... CHk0gfHEmQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... ULmatqVo3A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... srsXUz9bCQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... BwzQ--QVfQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... agD_7wkhow
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... lj6sPGVH_A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... JE_m8sntyA
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... a5YY3AsO0A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... VNRqgu6laQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... sqIC1CKO6g
I also want to give an honorable mention to the "Colorful Oregon" Safeway in Century Park on the other end of town that people have mentioned on this thread. While it's nothing to crazy, there is a lot of personalization to the area with this store through graphics as well as fixtures throughout this store. While this decor package has been limited to a few towns in the PNW, different walls graphics can be used at different stores that fit the theme of the area, and ultimately this is a decor package that I'm shocked Albertsons hasn't so far used more widespread at the very least throughout the PNW, if not the entire west coast.
We have to admit that Albertsons (or the firm they hired) has cooked up some great interior design packages, but it's shocking that they aren't used more widespread so far.