New Albertsons Interior Southern California

[bryceleinan]

So as part of a summer road trip up to Washington, I drove through Bend, OR. Although my main purpose was not to check out the Safeway at The Forum with Colorful Modern, I knew since I was in the area that I should check out what the commotion is about with the Safeway version of the new Upland Albertsons decor package. I also checkout out the other area Safeways as well while I was at it (I find it interesting Bend can support 4 Safeway's and one Albertsons all in a somewhat smallish city, that also has Fred Meyer, Walmart Supercenter, Costco, and Target, Whole Foods, along with some smaller grocery chains.)

I certainly had high expectations for this Safeway based off of my impressions and it did not disappoint. Here is my take and some observations on this store in comparison to the Upland Albertsons:

-The wall graphics and textures were well executed. While I feared that this decor package would not look as good in an older Safeway/Vons, especially with the drop ceiling, it actually helped since the wall decor went all the way up to the ceiling and filled almost the whole space with about a foot in between where the graphics ended and the ceiling, unlike the Upland Albertsons with the exposed ceiling, with the wall decor ending several feet before the ceiling.
-This store also had murals like the Upland stores, however in the cart corrals of both vestibules. The both have the phrases "hello Bend welcome... Sincerely, Safeway" and the Safeway logo was present on the other walls of the vestibules.
-Throughout the store, like Upland, there was little to no use of the Safeway logo anywhere outside of the vestibules. In fact, the Upland store had more brand identity than this store with its singular Albertsons logo. The front wall behind the registers pretty much has the exact same signs as the Upland store: "Local and loved," and "Your neighbor since...." Speaking of neighbor, the word "neighbor" also is heavily used in this store.
-Pretty much everything that would be Walmart Blue in the Upland Albertsons is bright red in this Safeway. Instead of the blue squares on the aisle markers with a number, they are red squares. The check stand lights have red accents instead of blue, and the fixture hung above the check stands also has red accents.
-Seeing the location of this Safeway, it makes sense why they chose this one out of the other four in the city to use this new decor package. This shopping center also has Costco and Whole Foods within a stones throw away, hence why this Safeway needs to aggressively compete. That being said, I believe a larger Costco is being built on the north end of town to replace the Costco that is next to this Safeway, and since not much land is available for large stores in Bend proper, I imagine Walmart (or even Target or Fred Meyer?) could scoop up this soon to be available Costco for a second Bend location. Walmart has plenty of experience taking over old Costco buildings.
-One of the few things that I dislike about this remodel is that this store still hasn't gotten rid of the lighting that has been used in the store since this store was remodeled to Lifestyle long ago. I wish Albertsons would just replace the lighting in all these old Safeway stores with the slim LED light strips, which were used in the Upland store.
-The heavy use of red in this store does make me question if the Upland Albertsons is really designed as a post-merger decor package (speaking that I feel it is so unlikely at this point, but you never truly know until it is all settled). If this store were to become a Ralphs or a Vons, it would have made so much more sense to use the red used in this Safeway. That being said, I do guess all the blue fixtures could be switched out for red ones, the blue walls painted red, and the little blue squares on the aisle markers with numbers could be easily taken off and replaced with red ones, and I'm sure it may at most take a couple days, I imagine they could probably do all that in a day... oh yes and I forgot! Replace that one panel with an Albertsons logo to a fruit cart

Here are some photos I took of the store:
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... Cv45MGE94A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... p5SrgyR-MQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... CHk0gfHEmQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... ULmatqVo3A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... srsXUz9bCQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... BwzQ--QVfQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... agD_7wkhow
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... lj6sPGVH_A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... JE_m8sntyA
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... a5YY3AsO0A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... VNRqgu6laQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... sqIC1CKO6g

I also want to give an honorable mention to the "Colorful Oregon" Safeway in Century Park on the other end of town that people have mentioned on this thread. While it's nothing to crazy, there is a lot of personalization to the area with this store through graphics as well as fixtures throughout this store. While this decor package has been limited to a few towns in the PNW, different walls graphics can be used at different stores that fit the theme of the area, and ultimately this is a decor package that I'm shocked Albertsons hasn't so far used more widespread at the very least throughout the PNW, if not the entire west coast.

We have to admit that Albertsons (or the firm they hired) has cooked up some great interior design packages, but it's shocking that they aren't used more widespread so far.

Not to go too far off topic, but since you brought up Fred Meyer, they were supposed to build a new store next to the new Costco. Not quite sure what happened, except I think the need for more housing basically killed that location, if the possible merger did not. I know traffic was a concern too.

[SoCalShopper1023]

So as part of a summer road trip up to Washington, I drove through Bend, OR. Although my main purpose was not to check out the Safeway at The Forum with Colorful Modern, I knew since I was in the area that I should check out what the commotion is about with the Safeway version of the new Upland Albertsons decor package. I also checkout out the other area Safeways as well while I was at it (I find it interesting Bend can support 4 Safeway's and one Albertsons all in a somewhat smallish city, that also has Fred Meyer, Walmart Supercenter, Costco, and Target, Whole Foods, along with some smaller grocery chains.)

I certainly had high expectations for this Safeway based off of my impressions and it did not disappoint. Here is my take and some observations on this store in comparison to the Upland Albertsons:

-The wall graphics and textures were well executed. While I feared that this decor package would not look as good in an older Safeway/Vons, especially with the drop ceiling, it actually helped since the wall decor went all the way up to the ceiling and filled almost the whole space with about a foot in between where the graphics ended and the ceiling, unlike the Upland Albertsons with the exposed ceiling, with the wall decor ending several feet before the ceiling.
-This store also had murals like the Upland stores, however in the cart corrals of both vestibules. The both have the phrases "hello Bend welcome... Sincerely, Safeway" and the Safeway logo was present on the other walls of the vestibules.
-Throughout the store, like Upland, there was little to no use of the Safeway logo anywhere outside of the vestibules. In fact, the Upland store had more brand identity than this store with its singular Albertsons logo. The front wall behind the registers pretty much has the exact same signs as the Upland store: "Local and loved," and "Your neighbor since...." Speaking of neighbor, the word "neighbor" also is heavily used in this store.
-Pretty much everything that would be Walmart Blue in the Upland Albertsons is bright red in this Safeway. Instead of the blue squares on the aisle markers with a number, they are red squares. The check stand lights have red accents instead of blue, and the fixture hung above the check stands also has red accents.
-Seeing the location of this Safeway, it makes sense why they chose this one out of the other four in the city to use this new decor package. This shopping center also has Costco and Whole Foods within a stones throw away, hence why this Safeway needs to aggressively compete. That being said, I believe a larger Costco is being built on the north end of town to replace the Costco that is next to this Safeway, and since not much land is available for large stores in Bend proper, I imagine Walmart (or even Target or Fred Meyer?) could scoop up this soon to be available Costco for a second Bend location. Walmart has plenty of experience taking over old Costco buildings.
-One of the few things that I dislike about this remodel is that this store still hasn't gotten rid of the lighting that has been used in the store since this store was remodeled to Lifestyle long ago. I wish Albertsons would just replace the lighting in all these old Safeway stores with the slim LED light strips, which were used in the Upland store.
-The heavy use of red in this store does make me question if the Upland Albertsons is really designed as a post-merger decor package (speaking that I feel it is so unlikely at this point, but you never truly know until it is all settled). If this store were to become a Ralphs or a Vons, it would have made so much more sense to use the red used in this Safeway. That being said, I do guess all the blue fixtures could be switched out for red ones, the blue walls painted red, and the little blue squares on the aisle markers with numbers could be easily taken off and replaced with red ones, and I'm sure it may at most take a couple days, I imagine they could probably do all that in a day... oh yes and I forgot! Replace that one panel with an Albertsons logo to a fruit cart

Here are some photos I took of the store:
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... Cv45MGE94A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... p5SrgyR-MQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... CHk0gfHEmQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... ULmatqVo3A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... srsXUz9bCQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... BwzQ--QVfQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... agD_7wkhow
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... lj6sPGVH_A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... JE_m8sntyA
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... a5YY3AsO0A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... VNRqgu6laQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... sqIC1CKO6g

I also want to give an honorable mention to the "Colorful Oregon" Safeway in Century Park on the other end of town that people have mentioned on this thread. While it's nothing to crazy, there is a lot of personalization to the area with this store through graphics as well as fixtures throughout this store. While this decor package has been limited to a few towns in the PNW, different walls graphics can be used at different stores that fit the theme of the area, and ultimately this is a decor package that I'm shocked Albertsons hasn't so far used more widespread at the very least throughout the PNW, if not the entire west coast.

We have to admit that Albertsons (or the firm they hired) has cooked up some great interior design packages, but it's shocking that they aren't used more widespread so far.

That interior package looks very well on a Safeway store! I love how the red accent colors blend very well with the rest of the decor package, and I prefer it over the blue accents the Upland Albertsons has (maybe because my mind associates it with the Walmart color scheme).

I wish they would have gone with this interior package sooner instead of the "Florida" decor package. I'm afraid that we won't see this package on many stores any time soon since many stores in ACI's footprint have been recently remodeled into the Florida decor package, and I doubt ACI will invest any more on remodeling those stores again, especially with the Kroger merger still the process.

[ClownLoach]

So as part of a summer road trip up to Washington, I drove through Bend, OR. Although my main purpose was not to check out the Safeway at The Forum with Colorful Modern, I knew since I was in the area that I should check out what the commotion is about with the Safeway version of the new Upland Albertsons decor package. I also checkout out the other area Safeways as well while I was at it (I find it interesting Bend can support 4 Safeway's and one Albertsons all in a somewhat smallish city, that also has Fred Meyer, Walmart Supercenter, Costco, and Target, Whole Foods, along with some smaller grocery chains.)

I certainly had high expectations for this Safeway based off of my impressions and it did not disappoint. Here is my take and some observations on this store in comparison to the Upland Albertsons:

-The wall graphics and textures were well executed. While I feared that this decor package would not look as good in an older Safeway/Vons, especially with the drop ceiling, it actually helped since the wall decor went all the way up to the ceiling and filled almost the whole space with about a foot in between where the graphics ended and the ceiling, unlike the Upland Albertsons with the exposed ceiling, with the wall decor ending several feet before the ceiling.
-This store also had murals like the Upland stores, however in the cart corrals of both vestibules. The both have the phrases "hello Bend welcome... Sincerely, Safeway" and the Safeway logo was present on the other walls of the vestibules.
-Throughout the store, like Upland, there was little to no use of the Safeway logo anywhere outside of the vestibules. In fact, the Upland store had more brand identity than this store with its singular Albertsons logo. The front wall behind the registers pretty much has the exact same signs as the Upland store: "Local and loved," and "Your neighbor since...." Speaking of neighbor, the word "neighbor" also is heavily used in this store.
-Pretty much everything that would be Walmart Blue in the Upland Albertsons is bright red in this Safeway. Instead of the blue squares on the aisle markers with a number, they are red squares. The check stand lights have red accents instead of blue, and the fixture hung above the check stands also has red accents.
-Seeing the location of this Safeway, it makes sense why they chose this one out of the other four in the city to use this new decor package. This shopping center also has Costco and Whole Foods within a stones throw away, hence why this Safeway needs to aggressively compete. That being said, I believe a larger Costco is being built on the north end of town to replace the Costco that is next to this Safeway, and since not much land is available for large stores in Bend proper, I imagine Walmart (or even Target or Fred Meyer?) could scoop up this soon to be available Costco for a second Bend location. Walmart has plenty of experience taking over old Costco buildings.
-One of the few things that I dislike about this remodel is that this store still hasn't gotten rid of the lighting that has been used in the store since this store was remodeled to Lifestyle long ago. I wish Albertsons would just replace the lighting in all these old Safeway stores with the slim LED light strips, which were used in the Upland store.
-The heavy use of red in this store does make me question if the Upland Albertsons is really designed as a post-merger decor package (speaking that I feel it is so unlikely at this point, but you never truly know until it is all settled). If this store were to become a Ralphs or a Vons, it would have made so much more sense to use the red used in this Safeway. That being said, I do guess all the blue fixtures could be switched out for red ones, the blue walls painted red, and the little blue squares on the aisle markers with numbers could be easily taken off and replaced with red ones, and I'm sure it may at most take a couple days, I imagine they could probably do all that in a day... oh yes and I forgot! Replace that one panel with an Albertsons logo to a fruit cart

Here are some photos I took of the store:
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... Cv45MGE94A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... p5SrgyR-MQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... CHk0gfHEmQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... ULmatqVo3A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... srsXUz9bCQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... BwzQ--QVfQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... agD_7wkhow
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... lj6sPGVH_A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... JE_m8sntyA
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... a5YY3AsO0A
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... VNRqgu6laQ
https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/safeway ... sqIC1CKO6g

I also want to give an honorable mention to the "Colorful Oregon" Safeway in Century Park on the other end of town that people have mentioned on this thread. While it's nothing to crazy, there is a lot of personalization to the area with this store through graphics as well as fixtures throughout this store. While this decor package has been limited to a few towns in the PNW, different walls graphics can be used at different stores that fit the theme of the area, and ultimately this is a decor package that I'm shocked Albertsons hasn't so far used more widespread at the very least throughout the PNW, if not the entire west coast.

We have to admit that Albertsons (or the firm they hired) has cooked up some great interior design packages, but it's shocking that they aren't used more widespread so far.

That interior package looks very well on a Safeway store! I love how the red accent colors blend very well with the rest of the decor package, and I prefer it over the blue accents the Upland Albertsons has (maybe because my mind associates it with the Walmart color scheme).

I wish they would have gone with this interior package sooner instead of the "Florida" decor package. I'm afraid that we won't see this package on many stores any time soon since many stores in ACI's footprint have been recently remodeled into the Florida decor package, and I doubt ACI will invest any more on remodeling those stores again, especially with the Kroger merger still the process.

There are still a lot of old Lifestyle stores that got horrendous repaint so-called remodels which are prime candidates for this new decor. When this merger gets called off I expect capital expenditures to increase at both chains. Plus don't forget Upland was Colorful Lifestyle which is about a decade old now, obviously Albertsons considers that decor to be outdated now and we can assume it has been retired and will not appear in any future remodels.

[rwsandiego]

...Plus don't forget Upland was Colorful Lifestyle which is about a decade old now, obviously Albertsons considers that decor to be outdated now and we can assume it has been retired and will not appear in any future remodels.

The new package does nod to Modern
It's a decade old on Albertsons/Safeway stores, but it started at Shaw's and Star several years before that. So, yeah - outdated!

As much as I like the Modern (a/k/a Florida) package, it is getting long in the tooth. This new package gives a nod to the Modern package, but takes it to a whole different level.

Regarding the red s blue accents, I agree. Red looks better. In addition to looking like Walmart, there's something about that shade of blue that (to me) doesn't belong around food.

[ClownLoach]

...Plus don't forget Upland was Colorful Lifestyle which is about a decade old now, obviously Albertsons considers that decor to be outdated now and we can assume it has been retired and will not appear in any future remodels.

The new package does nod to Modern
It's a decade old on Albertsons/Safeway stores, but it started at Shaw's and Star several years before that. So, yeah - outdated!

As much as I like the Modern (a/k/a Florida) package, it is getting long in the tooth. This new package gives a nod to the Modern package, but takes it to a whole different level.

Regarding the red s blue accents, I agree. Red looks better. In addition to looking like Walmart, there's something about that shade of blue that (to me) doesn't belong around food.

The blue photographs very differently from how it looks in real life. It is less intense.

[SoCalShopper1023]

It looks like with this new decor package, ACI brought back the spotlights in their produce department. I remember one of the first things that ACI did when they took control of Safeway, was removing all the spotlighting in produce (and other areas), and just adding rows of lighting strips. In my opinion when retailers add spotlights to their stores, it makes the stores look more "elegant" and provides a better ambiance.

When it's nothing but just rows of bright tubes of lighting, it makes the stores appear like discount format store. That was one of my biggest complaints that I've had with the way ACI.

[ClownLoach]

It looks like with this new decor package, ACI brought back the spotlights in their produce department. I remember one of the first things that ACI did when they took control of Safeway, was removing all the spotlighting in produce (and other areas), and just adding rows of lighting strips. In my opinion when retailers add spotlights to their stores, it makes the stores look more "elegant" and provides a better ambiance.

When it's nothing but just rows of bright tubes of lighting, it makes the stores appear like discount format store. That was one of my biggest complaints that I've had with the way ACI.

I don't care for what ACI did in some of the Safeway owned stores, but the lifestyle format was way, way too dark. Especially because many of those recessed can lights at the time were using new 4 pin compact florescent bulbs that to this day do not have a reliable LED plug in replacement. So the can lights would lose 80% of their light output in a year and they cost too much to replace every 6 months. That's why ACI made the simplest decision to add back lighting to those dark caves which was to just replace with strips as the existing wiring could just be cut and reused without running new conduit, circuits etc. This also avoided the need to pull building permits which is why it was done so inconsistently. They did not necessarily remove all spotlights however, if the store had "regular" spotlights used for accents around the store instead of the 4 pin CFL they were kept. Most of the stores with such lights were the Pavilions format but I do recall a few other Safeway format stores here and there (incl Vons) that had spotlights around the store here and there even after strips replaced the cans. Those CFL can fixtures Safeway put in with Lifestyle remodels were never designed to be the entire lighting package for anything, they were supposed to be accent lighting. Someone liked the idea of creating "mood lighting ambiance" and rolled it out without doing adequate research into the type of fixtures they were buying.

[ClownLoach]

I found an interesting Albertsons decor package that is slightly older, but still newer than both Colorful Lifestyle and Modern. Look up the Albertsons on Hollister in Goleta. This was remodeled out of PFH decor and I now realize this new decor in Upland and Bend is an evolution of the same package used in this Goleta location. I know it was mentioned elsewhere in the last year or two, but it definitely is the "1.0" version of what we are calling Colorful Modern.

[marketreportblog]

I found an interesting Albertsons decor package that is slightly older, but still newer than both Colorful Lifestyle and Modern. Look up the Albertsons on Hollister in Goleta. This was remodeled out of PFH decor and I now realize this new decor in Upland and Bend is an evolution of the same package used in this Goleta location. I know it was mentioned elsewhere in the last year or two, but it definitely is the "1.0" version of what we are calling Colorful Modern.

That decor package also appeared in quite a few of the Idaho-area stores, if I'm not mistaken. Here's one in Wyoming that opened last year with it. And looking at it now, it seems they used it scattered across the country. Here's a location in Louisiana that got it as far back as 2018. But I don't think it ever made it outside the Albertsons-branded stores, did it?

[rwsandiego]

I found an interesting Albertsons decor package that is slightly older, but still newer than both Colorful Lifestyle and Modern. Look up the Albertsons on Hollister in Goleta. This was remodeled out of PFH decor and I now realize this new decor in Upland and Bend is an evolution of the same package used in this Goleta location. I know it was mentioned elsewhere in the last year or two, but it definitely is the "1.0" version of what we are calling Colorful Modern.

That decor package also appeared in quite a few of the Idaho-area stores, if I'm not mistaken. Here's one in Wyoming that opened last year with it. And looking at it now, it seems they used it scattered across the country. Here's a location in Louisiana that got it as far back as 2018. But I don't think it ever made it outside the Albertsons-branded stores, did it?

That package has been discussed here, but I don't recall what we called it. Something like "Heritage," maybe?