Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

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Super S
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: January 10th, 2018, 8:44 pm
Many Fred Meyer Stores remodeled the past few years look worse than they did before the remodels. The concrete floors look terrible. The colors on the walls and the font on the walls is repulsive. The stores do not feel upscale at all anymore. They feel dreary and downscale as far as the hard appearance goes, yet the presentation of merchandise is still more upscale. It is a very conflicted feeling store.

I have seen some bad looking cement floors on remodels they did 10 years ago, though. It seemed like for a while they started to include new floor tiles in remodels when the concrete below was in too rough of shape. But more recently they seem to be back to the "concrete, period" strategy. That is fine, but they need to figure out a way to make the concrete look presentable.
The thing about the polished floors is that they can be presentable when NEW. But years of dirt getting in between leaves marks. Not to mention floors sometimes were cut up for previous plumbing, electrical, and other things installed during previous builds/remodels resulting in random patches in the floor. And with inconsistent maintenance, some of these floors start to lose their shine fairly quickly. I really think this is best suited for stores like Costco.
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by pseudo3d »

Super S wrote: January 10th, 2018, 9:14 pm
storewanderer wrote: January 10th, 2018, 8:44 pm
Many Fred Meyer Stores remodeled the past few years look worse than they did before the remodels. The concrete floors look terrible. The colors on the walls and the font on the walls is repulsive. The stores do not feel upscale at all anymore. They feel dreary and downscale as far as the hard appearance goes, yet the presentation of merchandise is still more upscale. It is a very conflicted feeling store.

I have seen some bad looking cement floors on remodels they did 10 years ago, though. It seemed like for a while they started to include new floor tiles in remodels when the concrete below was in too rough of shape. But more recently they seem to be back to the "concrete, period" strategy. That is fine, but they need to figure out a way to make the concrete look presentable.
The thing about the polished floors is that they can be presentable when NEW. But years of dirt getting in between leaves marks. Not to mention floors sometimes were cut up for previous plumbing, electrical, and other things installed during previous builds/remodels resulting in random patches in the floor. And with inconsistent maintenance, some of these floors start to lose their shine fairly quickly. I really think this is best suited for stores like Costco.
I know my local H-E-B's floor got really hacked up with their last remodel, and polishing out didn't really improve the aesthetics (it's miles better than the Home Depot flooring, which is a rough, cracked, and filthy mess). Then again, I've basically thought of H-E-B as a warehouse grocer, as there's no food service in the deli or other niceties (soups/salads), and half the time they direct you to an express check-out lane (whether or not the items match up), and that rarely has a dedicated bagger on hand. I think the nicest floors I've seen in ANY H-E-B were ones that were located in an old Albertsons.
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by storewanderer »

I'm confident if you throw enough money at the floors, if you want good looking cement floors, you can get them. A Raleys near me that was 20 years old, unremodeled, spent millions of dollars and one of the things they did was pull up the old white tile floor and install a cement floor. At first it didn't look so great but they figured out some way to make it look great, as good as new actually. I'm sure they spent a ton of money but at least they did it right.

Raleys also has another store in Reno that was a 1978 build and went through a couple major remodels in its life as Raleys the last one being in 1996, then a few years ago was converted to Food Source and that conversion involved pulling up the floors and doing cement. Again, I don't know what they did, but the floor looks okay, except that it is full of cracks. At least it doesn't have a bunch of glue marks and tile marks to go along with all of the cracks.

Kroger, with cement floors on remodels, often times does not do it right. They do have one store in Reno with cement floors that was only about 8 years old when the tiles got pulled up and those cement floors actually look good. It seems to be more of a challenge with older stores.

Either do it right, or just keep tile floors...
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by babs »

Super S wrote: January 10th, 2018, 9:56 am I have noticed some inconsistency with recent Fred Meyer remodels. Some are thorough and well done. Others, not so much. Yesterday, I made a quick stop at the Fred Meyer off I-5 at Lancaster in Salem, and discovered that they did a major remodel sometime in the last couple years. (I was last in this one about 2-3 years ago) To be honest, this one looks worse now. They went to polished concrete floors and you can see the lines of the old tiles which is bad enough, but also removed the suspended ceiling, and did not even bother to paint above where the ceiling was. Not only does it make the store look dark, but it exposes the mish-mash of various remodels...one portion is taller with wooden beams, the grocery portion is lower with metal beams and different construction. It looks patched together. And very obvious that the store was added on to at some point in time. Painting the exposed area (as they have done with most of these where the suspended ceiling was removed) would at least provide a more consistent appearance. It also appears that Fred Meyer is sticking with their older checkstand design again, at least at this store.

Supposedly Longview is being remodeled soon. Hopefully they don't cheapen that one too much....
This Fred Meyer store was just remodeled this fall. And it does look like they cut corners on the remodel. They may have gotten a smaller budget and had to value engineer the project. This does happen a lot with stores that are off the beaten path. I was there for the Grand Opening and I didn't think the store was done, but it was. I do think the dark black ceiling is a new look for the chain. The new Fred Meyer in Gig Harbor has a black ceiling so that appears to be a new look for them.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/busi ... 71454.html
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by StoreLiker2006 »

The 82nd & Foster (Southeast) Fred Meyer had recently closed as of just a few days ago, after just over 77 years in business. It had not been substantially remodeled on the outside since 1995, though there had been a recent expansion to the south after the original Home Improvement & Garden Center shut down in 2007.

The store originally opened November 29, 1940 on the site of a car dealership which bit the dust because of the effects of the Great Depression. It had been initially remodeled in 1952, but most of us remember this location from when it was remodeled for the second time in 1966; that particular refreshing set the template for what future Fred Meyer stores built in the 1970s and 1980s were to look like. The freestanding Home Improvement & Garden Center building (which became the FM Red Tag store from 2008 to 2014, now currently a Harbor Freight) was originally a Fred Meyer Auto Center (who remembers that side of Freddy's these days?) from 1968 to 1978.

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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by Super S »

babs wrote: January 17th, 2018, 4:24 pm

This Fred Meyer store was just remodeled this fall. And it does look like they cut corners on the remodel. They may have gotten a smaller budget and had to value engineer the project. This does happen a lot with stores that are off the beaten path. I was there for the Grand Opening and I didn't think the store was done, but it was. I do think the dark black ceiling is a new look for the chain. The new Fred Meyer in Gig Harbor has a black ceiling so that appears to be a new look for them.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/busi ... 71454.html
The ceiling at the Salem store was not painted though. The high portion was unpainted wood beams/roofing while the lower portion was unpainted metal/wood trusses with other random unpainted components (sprinklers, refrigeration lines, conduit, etc.) I don't think a dark ceiling is a good look....look at how Safeway has moved away from this.
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by storewanderer »

I don't know anything about these topics but I am trying to figure out the motivation behind a dark ceiling.

Raleys has some stores with dark ceilings (burgundy type color - both warehouse style ceilings as well as some remodels where the old ceilings were painted that color) and the stores feel, well, as lake here has said before, dark. Despite the fact that nothing else about the stores is dark... that ceiling projects down darkness.

Does a dark ceiling somehow make things more energy efficient? I would think it would be the opposite...

Kroger needs to restructure their entire interior design system because their new stores the past 5 or so years (except for the Fresh Fare remodels in SoCal which look professional and put together, but not particularly upscale) do not look very good; awful ugly colors, not well put together at all, weird fonts on wall signs, designs that do not tie together well, I could go on and on... they could just look to Harris Teeter or Mariano's for some ideas.
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by Super S »

storewanderer wrote: January 18th, 2018, 10:50 pm I don't know anything about these topics but I am trying to figure out the motivation behind a dark ceiling.

Raleys has some stores with dark ceilings (burgundy type color - both warehouse style ceilings as well as some remodels where the old ceilings were painted that color) and the stores feel, well, as lake here has said before, dark. Despite the fact that nothing else about the stores is dark... that ceiling projects down darkness.

Does a dark ceiling somehow make things more energy efficient? I would think it would be the opposite...

Kroger needs to restructure their entire interior design system because their new stores the past 5 or so years (except for the Fresh Fare remodels in SoCal which look professional and put together, but not particularly upscale) do not look very good; awful ugly colors, not well put together at all, weird fonts on wall signs, designs that do not tie together well, I could go on and on... they could just look to Harris Teeter or Mariano's for some ideas.
Safeway had a period of time during the 1980s where they made the produce department have the appearance of a big tent. Along the wall was a green awning to simulate the "tent" and in the department the walls and ceilings were painted black with small halogen spotlights shining on the produce. By about the early 1990s, some minor remodeling was taking place, in that they were removing the awnings and adding conventional lighting back (taking time to match the rest of the store), as well as repainting. I remember going into one Safeway right after they removed the awning and the ceiling in that area was still black as it had not been painted yet.

More recently we have seen the Safeway Lifestyle remodels where lighting was reduced in produce, and they are adding lighting again but not matching.

Fred Meyer has gone back and forth with this. I have seen some stores in the past where they painted the suspended ceiling in different colors, others where they left it alone. More recently we have seen most stores completely removing the suspended ceiling (one exception is Vancouver's Mill Plain store which actually installed a new one) and the area above painted a lighter color, in some cases adding skylights. I honestly did not notice if Salem added skylights as it was already dark outside when I was in there. But the lighter color reflects some light and makes the store look a lot brighter.

My personal opinion of the worst Fred Meyer interior was the early 1990s with plain gray walls and neon lighting everywhere spelling out the department names. It's a good thing that one didn't get black ceilings....
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by Kyleinlongview »

Super S wrote: January 10th, 2018, 9:56 am
Supposedly Longview is being remodeled soon. Hopefully they don't cheapen that one too much....
Just talking today to one of the managers of Longview Fred Meyer. They were just told Kroger is putting on hold the remodel, and that it sounds like it is the case with most planned remodels for the first half of 2018 company wide.
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Re: Fred Meyer Remodels Continue

Post by Super S »

Kyleinlongview wrote: January 21st, 2018, 11:21 pm
Super S wrote: January 10th, 2018, 9:56 am
Supposedly Longview is being remodeled soon. Hopefully they don't cheapen that one too much....
Just talking today to one of the managers of Longview Fred Meyer. They were just told Kroger is putting on hold the remodel, and that it sounds like it is the case with most planned remodels for the first half of 2018 company wide.
Was wondering what was going on. Was in there the other day and noticed no signs of an upcoming remodel. Also noticed that new package center which nobody appeared to be using, and it did not appear to be staffed although it is across from the service desk.
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