Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

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Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by pseudo3d »

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/02/26/ ... r-develop/

It's great that one division is opening four new stores this year, though all of them seem to be a long time coming (and all in the Bay Area--no new markets here): Hercules, San Jose, El Dorado Hills, and San Francisco.

Hercules I remember a few years ago when they had announced a plan for a Safeway to build a new center on the site of a park and ride turned failed farmers market.

San Jose, located at 1305 S. Winchester Blvd. is the site of a former Safeway that closed nearly a decade ago. The construction looks to be gutting the original store down to the columns (as well as the adjacent defunct Goodwill). It isn't clear if it's all-new construction or utilizes any of the old infrastructure, but they seem to be on the same footprint.

San Francisco, I believe they're referring to the 375 32nd Avenue store, formerly Fresh & Easy (and located in what I read was an old Lucky/Albertsons), to be reopened as Andronico's. The other half of the store is still occupied by CVS.

El Dorado Hills is a standard Safeway in a new shopping center planned at least since 2017.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by Alpha8472 »

The sad part is that there are virtually no other chains that want to open up supermarkets in Safeway's Northern California territory. Lucky and Raley's are not opening new stores. Sprouts and Whole Foods are also not opening anything. Safeway is everywhere and has too much market share. There is not enough choice.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by rwsandiego »

pseudo3d wrote: March 1st, 2020, 11:53 am...San Francisco, I believe they're referring to the 375 32nd Avenue store, formerly Fresh & Easy (and located in what I read was an old Lucky/Albertsons), to be reopened as Andronico's. The other half of the store is still occupied by CVS....
That's the one! Looks like the store has been in the works for some time.. According to groceteria.com, the current building was constructed as an Albertons in 1999, but this article states it opened as a Lucky in 2002.Prior to the current building, groceteria lists the site as having an address of 3132 Clement Street and housed a Safeway from 1954 - circa 1999. I remember seeing that Safe way on a San Francisco trip long ago. It still sported a 1960's logo.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: March 1st, 2020, 7:05 pm The sad part is that there are virtually no other chains that want to open up supermarkets in Safeway's Northern California territory. Lucky and Raley's are not opening new stores. Sprouts and Whole Foods are also not opening anything. Safeway is everywhere and has too much market share. There is not enough choice.
NorCal is supposed to be building a new store in Reno too... they paid $6 million for the lot.

Raleys is opening a replacement store in Sacramento or did so in the past week and has a store under construction in Truckee. Save Mart has a store under construction in Redding (good luck to them- but at least they are trying...).

So there is a little bit of activity. But not much. I am surprised Save Mart is opening anything else given that new Lucky in Dublin seems to be a ghost town.

Sprouts is adding a third store up here in Reno next year.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by Alpha8472 »

There is a large amount of empty land near the new Lucky in Dublin. Supposedly there will be many new condos built in the area in the near future. In time, that area will see a huge surge in population. Dublin is one of the fastest growing cities in the state.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by J-Man »

It's great that one division is opening four new stores this year, though all of them seem to be a long time coming (and all in the Bay Area--no new markets here): Hercules, San Jose, El Dorado Hills, and San Francisco.
El Dorado Hills is east of Sacramento. Definitely not in the Bay Area.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by pseudo3d »

I wouldn't put too much stake in that as a source, one of the secondary sources about the NorCal Safeways still referred to Safeway as a Pleasanton-based company with no mention of parent company Albertsons or its sister banners.
Alpha8472 wrote: March 1st, 2020, 7:05 pm The sad part is that there are virtually no other chains that want to open up supermarkets in Safeway's Northern California territory. Lucky and Raley's are not opening new stores. Sprouts and Whole Foods are also not opening anything. Safeway is everywhere and has too much market share. There is not enough choice.
Even in Texas (fast-growing), supermarket growth has been pretty low, with Kroger opening next to nothing in the entire state (in 2019, I think they opened one new Marketplace store in Dallas but NOTHING in Houston) while H-E-B is opening tons of stores in Houston and even one in Lubbock (United's territory). Albertsons did open two Tom Thumb stores last year in D/FW and I'm not sure about United. While I like choice too, H-E-B is a good grocery store, and the one two miles away from my house is large (100k square foot!) and makes decent pizza.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by lake52 »

Alpha8472 wrote: March 1st, 2020, 7:05 pm The sad part is that there are virtually no other chains that want to open up supermarkets in Safeway's Northern California territory. Lucky and Raley's are not opening new stores. Sprouts and Whole Foods are also not opening anything. Safeway is everywhere and has too much market share. There is not enough choice.

I disagree with this. Safeway is certainly the largest and most active, but plenty of other chains are expanding.

In the last 2-3 years Raley's has announced/opened the following stores
-Fair Oaks and Howe in Sacramento
-Nob Hill Foods in Santa Clara
-Truckee Flagship
-Bel Air Rancho Murieta
-Raleys Land Park Flagship Replacement
-Market 515 in Downtown Sacramento

Not to mention their questionable acquisition of 6 stores in Nevada. They also are rumored to be the unannounced grocer on the corner of Fiddyment and Blue Oaks in Roseville. For a chain of their size, not a terrible expansion.

SaveMart also has been busy with their fleet. They opened the Lucky Dublin store and have the Redding store under construction. They have also replaced at least two stores (Modesto & Los Banos) and have plans to replace a couple more. For a chain that hasn't opened a store in years, SaveMart is pretty active.

Whole Foods just opened a store in South Lake Tahoe and continues to dig around in Downtown Sacramento for a suitable location.

Nugget also has been expanding in Marin County and has a second store in Roseville under construction.

Sprouts has slowed growth but is still in the process of opening a store in Redding at the Hilltop Mall.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by Groceteria »

rwsandiego wrote: March 1st, 2020, 9:12 pmAccording to groceteria.com, the current building was constructed as an Albertons in 1999, but this article states it opened as a Lucky in 2002.
It was planned as a Lucky before the 1999 Albertsons/American Stores merger but it definitely opened as Albertsons. Lucky had disappeared as a banner by 2002, not to return for a few years.
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Re: Safeway opening four new stores in NorCal this year

Post by storewanderer »

lake52 wrote: March 2nd, 2020, 4:00 pm
I disagree with this. Safeway is certainly the largest and most active, but plenty of other chains are expanding.

In the last 2-3 years Raley's has announced/opened the following stores
-Fair Oaks and Howe in Sacramento (04/2017)
-Nob Hill Foods in Santa Clara (01/2018)
-Truckee Flagship (under construction)
-Bel Air Rancho Murieta (under construction)
-Raleys Land Park Flagship Replacement (about to open)
-Market 515 in Downtown Sacramento (originally this was separate from Raleys... did they fold it in?)
-Raleys 4030 Sunrise Rancho Cordova (07/2017)
Updated above with dates. I also wonder how many stores Raleys has remodeled. In 2016, they did a very major remodel to Wedge Pkwy in Reno (probably spent about as much as it would have been to just do a new store but that remodel has worked out very well for them), then since then they have done a pretty low budget remodel to Robb Drive in Reno, a really low budget but full remodel to former Scolaris in Reno on Caughlin, put in new flooring on their Incline Village Store and also new flooring on the former Scolaris in Fernley.

Looking at the above, and factoring in the remodels Save Mart has been doing which by this point I am guessing well exceed 75 locations (which I think are marginal at best and nothing like those new stores/major remodels you mention such as Modesto, Oakdale, Los Banos, or Turlock which are actually really good), I think the argument could be made Safeway is being reactionary in what they are doing.

So far I don't know of many remodels from Safeway; I know of Truckee and San Mateo back in 2018. Tahoe City expanded in 2016 or 2017 and even in expansion got the old tired Lifestyle decor but with cement floors (actually kept the old Lifestyle decor in the non-remodeled areas of the store). They re-did the lighting in South Lake Tahoe a few months before Whole Foods opened and I assumed that meant a remodel is coming and maybe one is coming but it isn't there yet. I think they also re-did the lighting in Kings Beach which I expect to be impacted more by the new Raleys in Truckee than the Truckee Safeway.
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