I'd imagine the Albertsons facility is probably at about its peak right now. It currently serves the Las Vegas Vons / Albertsons stores, the AZ Albertsons / Safeway stores and the El Paso Albertsons stores. Give or take 160 stores or so. They had to move the NM Albertsons stores to the United warehouse when they took over the Las Vegas Vons / Albertsons stores (and closed the Safeway warehouse in Tempe).storewanderer wrote: ↑June 25th, 2023, 9:04 pmAny idea how many stores that Albertsons AZ distribution center is built to serve vs. what Kroger currently uses in AZ?arizonaguy wrote: ↑June 25th, 2023, 8:29 pm
Albertsons got rid of the former Safeway warehouse in Tempe (it's now leased by Lucid motors). They do still run, for now, the adjacent milk plant.
Kroger may sell a lot of Albertsons / Safeway assets in Arizona (I can see virtually the entire store base sold) but they will not sell the Albertsons distribution center. It's next door to Kroger's existing main distribution center / milk plant and within a mile of Kroger's Ocado facility. It would allow Kroger to consolidate all of its facilities into one centralized location. Kroger has 2 other distribution centers that they could consolidate into the Albertsons facility. Therefore, the divested stores will need a warehouse and the Bashas' facility is probably the best facility that has excess capacity to handle the divested stores.
Looking at the two distribution centers I see Kroger has a distribution center, dairy, plus Dole Fruit directly in the same "compound" or general parking lot. The Albertsons distribution center is next to and across a train track from that Kroger dairy/warehouse/Dole compound. Tolleson was Smiths facility and it is configured very similar to Layton (except Layton has frozen bakery plant too).
The Kroger and Albertsons warehouses look almost equal size but the Kroger site appears to have significantly more parking spaces. Neither site seems to have the potential to expand...
I'm not sure how much warehouse capacity Kroger is freeing up on the perishable side by not serving Smiths Las Vegas/NM from AZ anymore. They previously freed up a lot of dry grocery capacity in AZ when Smiths opened the Henderson Warehouse a few years ago.
Kroger has a second warehouse in Phoenix for general merchandise at 5305 West Buckeye. This supplies a ton of stores with general merchandise and is probably at/over capacity. I think that is the original Frys warehouse?
Kroger actually has 4 distribution centers in the Phoenix area currently:
The main Tolleson facility at 500 S 99th Ave which has the distribution center, dairy and dole fruit. This was the former Smith's facility.
The 5305 W Buckeye in Phoenix facility which was built by Kroger in 1994 and was a Fry's facility prior to the merger of Fry's and Smith's.
There's also a facility at 6111 W Washington St. in Phoenix which was the main Fry's warehouse (and also the former home of the division office before it moved to the Smith's complex). Google street view shows the former office building (which has been vacant for at least 15 years and possibly longer since they consolidated the office to the Tolleson facility). At some point in the late 2000s - early 2010s Target and Supervalu took over this facility but in the late 2010s Kroger took it over again as they needed additional capacity.
Additionally there's a facility at 4302 W Buckeye Rd in Phoenix.
The two Buckeye Rd facilities as well as the one on W Washington St are operated by a Kroger subsidiary called Peyton's.
Peyton's also is the entity that will operate Kroger's MFC (market fulfillment centers) around Phoenix for grocery delivery.
The Ocado warehouse will be at 91st Ave / Buckeye Rd in Phoenix (1 mile from the main Fry's as well as Albertsons / Safeway distribution centers).
I believe Kroger owns the facility at 500 S 99th Ave as well as 5305 W Buckeye and leases the rest.