The Safeway center-store fixtures are most definitely still available, as they are being used for the lighting revamps in the LA-area stores. They are actually this model: http://www.wlmd.com/pdf/172.PDF. If I can find this info in 5 minutes, it seems that Albertsons could too...Super S wrote:That lighting still looks cheap though. Basically the same strip lights but with reflectors. It would not have taken much more effort to install nicer looking fixtures. It does accomplish making things brighter, but now you can't tell if they want to look upscale, look cheap, or simply do not care what the stores look like. They are in an obvious identity crisis now. More so with Safeway.
I do remember when Safeway used to have those "tents" over the produce departments but eventually removed them and installed new lighting for many of the same reasons. Somehow They were able to match fixtures then. Why can't they now?
Also, it appears that Safeway may have actually begun adding additional lighting within the Lifestyle stores prior to the Albertsons merger, and then Albertsons just drastically cheapened these revamps. I actually visited a Randalls in Austin a few months back which had received the Safeway-style fluorescent fixtures around its perimeter since my last visit in early 2014. These fixtures were clearly added by Safeway, as they do not match any of the cheap fixtures installed by Albertsons at other area stores (or in the wine area of this store in question, shown in the background of the front-end photo below) and appear in online photos from just prior to the merger.
I also saw Foursquare photos of a Safeway in the Bay Area which received the Safeway-style fluorescent fixtures around its perimeter in 2014 (the store had previously been very dark due to low ceilings).