Jackson, Wyoming Smith's

[kr.abs.swy]

The Jackson, Wyoming, Smith's just got a lite remodel where they ripped out all of the floor tiles, moved the Floral section into the one-hour photo area (which was replaced with digital photo kiosks), and got some new equipment. This store is only seven or eight years old -- I thought it was really weird that they would rip out floor tiles that still looked great so that they could have a stained cement floor. The article in the paper said that it was because the maintenance expense on a concrete floor is less than the tiles.

This store got another lite remodel about a year ago when they reset the store to add a larger organic/natural area and a sushi kiosk. This is the second lite remodel in the past two years.

They didn't put in any new wall fixtures with either remodel -- the lettering, etc., is all original (except above the new Floral section and where they moved the customer service desk).

In another related note, the local Loaf 'n Jug has shelf signs on certain grocery-store type products noting that the prices are the same in Loaf 'n Jug as in Smith's. And the gas pumps now have Loaf 'n Jug and Smith's logos.

[storewanderer]

I don't like this business of ripping out floors one bit.

[storewanderer]

Maybe they don't re-do the walls because these walls look better than their Ralphs knockoff walls.

[Super S]

I wonder if removing the floor tiles are a new Kroger thing. Fred Meyer has been removing them and finishing the concrete floors in their latest remodels, one example is the Vancouver Mill Plain store, which has parts so poorly done you can clearly tell where the tiles used to be. It will be interesting how the floors in the remodeled stores hold up in the long run.

[storewanderer]

"Fred Meyer has been removing them and finishing the concrete floors in their latest remodels, one example is the Vancouver Mill Plain store, which has parts so poorly done you can clearly tell where the tiles used to be."

I saw this in one of the Fred Meyers up in Boise (probably Garden City) in a lot of spots around the hardlines side of the store. I expect better out of Fred Meyer.

In the Dayton Smiths where they tore out the floor, they did an excellent job and you can't even tell that the store used to have a floor.

[Brian Lutz]

I guess it depends on the Fred Meyer store, but that doesn't seem to be happening consistently here. For example, the Issaquah store (built in the early part of this decade) was built with exposed concrete floors, but the Redmond store (built about 2-3 years after Issaquah using a somewhat unusual two story design with a mezzanine) has tiles all through the store. The Overlake store (which received a major remodel sometime in between those two) also used tile floors. The floors used in these stores seem to be similar to the ones used in most QFC stores.

[kr.abs.swy]

Storewanderer, I agree with you -- I don't like seeing the tiles removed either. That store now seems much darker than it used to -- it makes it seem closer to a warehouse.

If they were taking out 25-year-old nasty floor tiles, I would probably be OK with that. But these tiles were only seven or eight years old, along with the rest of the store, and looked really good. The pattern was attractive and they had held up over the years.

It's interesting that at the same time that Smith's ripped out floor tiles and polished the concrete, Albertsons ripped out the old floor tiles and put in new ones.