New Safeway for Reno

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New Safeway for Reno

Post by storewanderer »

This rumor has been out there a while but now it is official since Albertsons has purchased the lot. Safeway will build a new store in 2020 or 2021 in South Reno. The store is in an existing shopping center with Home Depot, Office Depot, CVS, Starbucks, 7-Eleven, and RC Willey that was mostly built over a decade ago.

This store should do pretty well due to growth in the area, assuming nobody else builds a store in the far superior location directly across the road.

The other problem is their site (which is the far side of the large open pad alongside Office Depot but behind the "Lamppost Pizza" building) is set pretty far back from the road and is actually blocked from view on the main roads by multiple existing buildings on the site. It is also on the wrong side of the road for people on the way home to the houses and apartments that are east and south of the site.

I am also not sure as this shopping center already has CVS (pharmacy), 7-Eleven (gas), and Starbucks how it will work for Safeway to offer those services with their store, or if they can offer those services...

I hope they get this right this time. Safeway has already failed twice in South Reno first in the late 80's with a Pak N Save that was barely open 2 years then a second time from 1996-2005 or so with the store on Kietzke Lane. If another competitor builds on the lot across the street from this new store, they will fail a third time.

But at least they are trying here. The area is growing. Smiths has been in a position to add more stores here for years with good operations and strong existing stores but Kroger doesn't seem to be able to make it happen. Raleys seems to be preoccupied with the Scolaris Stores they purchased. Save Mart... who knows.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by Brian Lutz »

I can name multiple Safeway locations that have a Starbucks in store even though there's a Starbucks store either in the same shopping center or within a block or two, so I suspect it won't be a problem. The same goes for Fred Meyer/QFC stores in the area. Then again, this is in Starbucks' home territory, so I'm not sure how common it is elsewhere.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by Super S »

I wonder if Albertsons still opens new stores without pharmacies. Historically, Albertsons almost never had a pharmacy if one already existed in the shopping center, thinking back to Boise this was usually the case if there was PayLess, Osco, Skaggs, as well as independent drugstores like the Hill's Pharmacy that was next to the old Broadway store, I have seen similar arrangements in other areas as well.

Safeway more consistently had pharmacies in their stores regardless of what other retailers they shared shopping centers with.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by storewanderer »

Brian Lutz wrote: March 26th, 2019, 8:50 am I can name multiple Safeway locations that have a Starbucks in store even though there's a Starbucks store either in the same shopping center or within a block or two, so I suspect it won't be a problem. The same goes for Fred Meyer/QFC stores in the area. Then again, this is in Starbucks' home territory, so I'm not sure how common it is elsewhere.
It depends how busy the Starbucks is. I've seen Starbucks shed freestanding locations before to favor the Safeway kiosks (they did it in Sparks, and they did it in Fallon here). I've seen other situations like Truckee where Starbucks is in the same shopping center as Safeway and due to the volume both of those Starbucks are very, very busy.

In this case I do not expect Starbucks to shed its freestanding location as it is a drive through location and located on the "on the way to work side of the road" with very heavy morning traffic. It does not get any crowds in the afternoon or evening but generally has a customer every 5-10 minutes. So I am not sure how well the center can support two Starbucks.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by rwsandiego »

Brian Lutz wrote: March 26th, 2019, 8:50 am I can name multiple Safeway locations that have a Starbucks in store even though there's a Starbucks store either in the same shopping center or within a block or two, so I suspect it won't be a problem. The same goes for Fred Meyer/QFC stores in the area. Then again, this is in Starbucks' home territory, so I'm not sure how common it is elsewhere.
It is very common in San Diego, Phoenix, and Chicago.
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by Alpha8472 »

A new Safeway opened in 2016 in Walnut Creek, California and it has a Starbucks even though there is a full sized Starbucks a few steps away in the same shopping center.

Another Safeway in the same city has the same thing. A real Starbucks is right next to the Safeway that has a Starbucks inside.

There is enough business for both. The Starbucks inside of Safeway often have limited hours and do not offer the full range of foods of a full sized Starbucks. Also, you do not tip Safeway Starbucks employees as they are Safeway employees and must put tips in the cash register as the property of Safeway.
Last edited by Alpha8472 on April 1st, 2019, 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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New Safeway Planned for Reno

Post by Grocery101 »

First new Safeway in years. It will be interesting to see how this works out for them. With all of the planned growth in that area, this could be a good thing.

https://www.kolotv.com/content/news/New ... 46451.html
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Re: New Safeway Planned for Reno

Post by storewanderer »

Grocery101 wrote: March 30th, 2019, 2:23 pm First new Safeway in years. It will be interesting to see how this works out for them. With all of the planned growth in that area, this could be a good thing.

https://www.kolotv.com/content/news/New ... 46451.html
Someone needs to add stores here. The market is growing. Smiths probably would have been a better option, but Kroger doesn't seem to like to build stores in the west coast for some reason. I kept hoping since we were here in NV and they have been building Smiths Stores in Las Vegas and Utah the past few years we may get lucky, but I guess we are too close to CA/OR/WA so we are in Kroger's "no new store" zone.

The problem is Safeway is a failure in the Reno market historically. Their 2 stores left here are run poorly (a year ago I'd have said they are run very poorly, so yes, they have made some improvements). Constant turnover of employees and generally poorly managed stores. Pricing is too high for the market. They closed 3 of their 5 stores in Reno/Sparks/Carson City over the past 10-15 years and those stores did great until they priced themselves out of the market. Even going back to the 70's and 80's when Safeway was dominant in Reno, they got run out of many parts of town by various competitors back then too and by the late 80's were down to 3 stores (after #3 a Pak N Save opened and closed in a 2 year span).

So I hope Safeway will do something here to actually focus on operations and try harder. There is easily the opportunity to add 3-5 more stores in Reno/Sparks if they want to do it. They built out the Sacramento market in the 00's where they were previously an also ran and the market was experiencing significant growth, so they have the ability...
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by timanny »

Being a native of Northern California, but having lived in Southern California, Phoenix, and Las Vegas for a large portion of my adult life, I really wish Kroger would buy Save Mart. And since the Save Mart brand has little value anymore outside of Modesto or Fresno, it would be even sweeter if they could get full rights to the Lucky name (since there are very few Lucky stores under Albertsons) and rebrand everything Turlock and north as Lucky, with Merced and south becoming Ralphs (Lucky didn't really have a history in Fresno and Ralphs had a bad reputation in the Bay Area). Save Mart's purchase of the old NorCal Albertsons may have been too much - not Haggen too much, obviously - but the Save Mart Lucky is not like the original Lucky, and Save Mart itself is not as nice as it once was. I'm also annoyed by Save Mart's refusal to use the Lucky name in parts of the valley - I get it, but Lucky was more popular in Tracy and Stockton than Save Mart was, and Save Mart didn't exist in Sacramento at all. While we're at at, there was a Lucky store in Modesto before Save Mart even existed.

My point is, I don't get Kroger's deal. They do really well here in Vegas and Phoenix, have a decent foothold in Southern California, and seem to do well in Oregon and Washington. So why are they afraid of Northern California and Northern Nevada?
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Re: New Safeway for Reno

Post by storewanderer »

timanny wrote: April 9th, 2019, 7:00 pm Being a native of Northern California, but having lived in Southern California, Phoenix, and Las Vegas for a large portion of my adult life, I really wish Kroger would buy Save Mart. And since the Save Mart brand has little value anymore outside of Modesto or Fresno, it would be even sweeter if they could get full rights to the Lucky name (since there are very few Lucky stores under Albertsons) and rebrand everything Turlock and north as Lucky, with Merced and south becoming Ralphs (Lucky didn't really have a history in Fresno and Ralphs had a bad reputation in the Bay Area). Save Mart's purchase of the old NorCal Albertsons may have been too much - not Haggen too much, obviously - but the Save Mart Lucky is not like the original Lucky, and Save Mart itself is not as nice as it once was. I'm also annoyed by Save Mart's refusal to use the Lucky name in parts of the valley - I get it, but Lucky was more popular in Tracy and Stockton than Save Mart was, and Save Mart didn't exist in Sacramento at all. While we're at at, there was a Lucky store in Modesto before Save Mart even existed.

My point is, I don't get Kroger's deal. They do really well here in Vegas and Phoenix, have a decent foothold in Southern California, and seem to do well in Oregon and Washington. So why are they afraid of Northern California and Northern Nevada?
Generally speaking Kroger does not seem to have much interest in California. I think they prefer cheaper markets to operate in. They really love Las Vegas; they just opened a distribution center there in Henderson for dry grocery for Smiths.

Kroger is present as Smiths in Northern Nevada with 6 high to very high volume stores. So far the stores remain very busy despite Kroger's best efforts to behave oddly by cutting off Visa acceptance and doing a lot of price increases. These stores are operated well and seem to have fairly tenured store management in place, unlike certain competitors who are the topic of this post where it is a revolving door. Smiths entered this market in the late 80's. 2 of these stores here (the two Reno ones) were actually built by Kroger in the 00's. Kroger has invested quite a bit of money in this market in recent years and the money seems to keep flowing in, so I assume they are happy with their return. Up until about 7 years ago, there were still a few stores with the original (pre Kroger) Smiths interiors. Since then one of those stores (Sparks) got remodeled twice with the remodel last year being very major and costing them millions of dollars, and the one in Carson City has also had some light remodel work since the initial remodel to move it out from the 1995 Smiths interior (remodeled pharmacy and added some new refrigeration/freezers).

Save Mart runs pretty low volumes in Reno but a few of their stores are well positioned for a number of infill projects in the area. They probably need to just give up on 3-4 of their locations including the 2 Food Maxx Stores which have been run like dirt.

I think the problem with Save Mart is their store base is full of garbage. They have done some of these remodels, which are actually pretty good, but generally speaking you are sitting on a lot of stores with floors, fixtures, refrigeration, and paint jobs from the 90's. The Food Maxx division I thought was one of the high points of Save Mart but they opened 2 up here in Nevada in closed Save Marts and the operation has been incredibly poor and the quality of their fresh products is terrible, add to it prices higher than WinCo, Wal Mart, and Smiths and it is a real "why bother" experience. I do not see Kroger buying Save Mart. It has just been run too far into the ground. It would take a lot of money to fix it. And those under 40,000 square foot stores don't really fit Kroger's model. Kroger needs pretty high volumes and corresponding large store sizes for their format to work.

Safeway's results in Nevada have been about like they have been elsewhere against Kroger. Not good. They closed stores in Reno, Sparks, and Carson City in the past 10-12 years. Lovelock and Hawthorne are extremely low volume operations in towns with declining populations. They got a saving grace in Fallon when Raleys closed (only after trying to convert to Food Source and then "Beverage Market") but they are the wrong store for Fallon. So it is continually funny to me they will attempt a new store. They really need to straighten out their operations in this market in short order.
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