Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

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Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by storewanderer »

Store is closing; former Pavilions in a busy area. Hard to believe this was underperforming but maybe with their awful pricing it was especially as Target has added more groceries and is in the same parking lot.

Closure is being blamed on a lease issue. Okay. Next, it will be interesting to see what Asian grocer takes the space, they will be getting a very nice space.
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by steps »

Word from employees the rent was raised to $90,000 a month and the store was making $350K a month. The times I shopped at this store it was never really busy but that might be because of its size so it didn't look busy. It was "downgraded" to a Vons so that might have been a sign.
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by ClownLoach »

steps wrote: February 10th, 2022, 11:00 pm Word from employees the rent was raised to $90,000 a month and the store was making $350K a month. The times I shopped at this store it was never really busy but that might be because of its size so it didn't look busy. It was "downgraded" to a Vons so that might have been a sign.
Multiplied the numbers by 12 for annual figures.
No way the store only was doing $4.2M in sales per year. If they meant EBITDA (profit) at $4.2M a year I don't see a good reason to walk away as it's a solid profit. It is an original Pavilions that I believe opened in the late 1980s and is close to 80,000 Sq ft. Lots of empty linoleum around the store for over a decade. Actually that rent is very reasonable for such a massive building in a nice center. Definitely too low volume to justify any remodel expenditures but it was the very elegant Pavilions interior from before they downgraded to using the exact same lifestyle decor as a Vons (so two designs ago). It aged very well. I haven't been in since the Vons nameplate change but they did not remodel as it really didn't need it. For some reason it got upgraded lighting better than most Lifestyle so it didn't need changes later and looked very elegant without feeling dark.

My hunch is two years or more of brutal high double digit negative comps due to the horrible construction mess a block away. Beach and Edinger is one of the 5 busiest intersections in Orange County and it has been a narrow, congested nightmare with the 405 widening. Edinger was completely closed for almost a year until recently.

Unfortunately Wall Street is so obsessed with comps that it sometimes forces the closure of profitable stores. The store was always slow. The surrounding demographics have changed significantly around there but for the better with about 5,000 new luxury apartments built in the last decade within a one mile radius. More on the way when they evict all the central core occupied and successful big box retail at Bella Terra soon to build more apartments as I mentioned on another thread about loss of productive retail space because all residential uses are now more profitable than any retail use here which should scare the hell out of everyone who doesn't want to see Amazon kill all of retail.

I blame the 405 project for killing this store. At least a quarter of their already light customer base would have been cut off by the one year road closure. I still can't believe that they didn't do phased rebuilding as they did in all other nearby major streets where a bridge had to be rebuilt one half at a time so at least the street remained open.
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by ClownLoach »

ClownLoach wrote: February 11th, 2022, 12:37 am
steps wrote: February 10th, 2022, 11:00 pm Word from employees the rent was raised to $90,000 a month and the store was making $350K a month. The times I shopped at this store it was never really busy but that might be because of its size so it didn't look busy. It was "downgraded" to a Vons so that might have been a sign.
Multiplied the numbers by 12 for annual figures.
No way the store only was doing $4.2M in sales per year. If they meant EBITDA (profit) at $4.2M a year I don't see a good reason to walk away as it's a solid profit. It is an original Pavilions that I believe opened in the late 1980s and is close to 80,000 Sq ft. Lots of empty linoleum around the store for over a decade. Actually that rent is very reasonable for such a massive building in a nice center. Definitely too low volume to justify any remodel expenditures but it was the very elegant Pavilions interior from before they downgraded to using the exact same lifestyle decor as a Vons (so two designs ago). It aged very well. I haven't been in since the Vons nameplate change but they did not remodel as it really didn't need it. For some reason it got upgraded lighting better than most Lifestyle so it didn't need changes later and looked very elegant without feeling dark.

My hunch is two years or more of brutal high double digit negative comps due to the horrible construction mess a block away. Beach and Edinger is one of the 5 busiest intersections in Orange County and it has been a narrow, congested nightmare with the 405 widening. Edinger was completely closed for almost a year until recently.

Unfortunately Wall Street is so obsessed with comps that it sometimes forces the closure of profitable stores. The store was always slow. The surrounding demographics have changed significantly around there but for the better with about 5,000 new luxury apartments built in the last decade within a one mile radius. More on the way when they evict all the central core occupied and successful big box retail at Bella Terra soon to build more apartments as I mentioned on another thread about loss of productive retail space because all residential uses are now more profitable than any retail use here which should scare the hell out of everyone who doesn't want to see Amazon kill all of retail.

I blame the 405 project for killing this store. At least a quarter of their already light customer base would have been cut off by the one year road closure. I still can't believe that they didn't do phased rebuilding as they did in all other nearby major streets where a bridge had to be rebuilt one half at a time so at least the street remained open.
I'd also mention that everyone in the surrounding area is slow and suffering from customers avoiding the Beach/Edinger/405 interchange as well. Target had already been fully remodeled then they went back and did the upgraded version late last year probably in an effort to get the business turned around. That has always been a dumpy Target and it's going to be negatively impacted by the new mid-size store a few miles south when it opens soon.

That is an interesting site at Beach and Garfield in Huntington Beach - it was a Ralphs for decades until they moved off the busy Beach Blvd. Corridor into a new housing tract development on Goldenwest around 2005. Seemed to be a backwards move and the new store was always slower and was remodeled multiple times until they added the Fresh Fare banner. It seemed like the customers didn't find where it moved to a mile west putting it much closer to the local flagship Ralphs Fresh Fare on Warner (they call it the Meadowlark store). Stein Mart took the Beach Blvd. Ralphs and seemed to do well until their chain wide liquidation. Target is now going in and it is about a 45,000 Sq ft. Store. Much larger than the express stores that usually top out in the high 20's/low 30's. I wonder how they will adjust to being "midsized.". Also it couldn't possibly have a pharmacy as there is not only a CVS next door that was a long time full sized SavOn, but prior to their merger CVS built across the street with a drive thru. So if Target puts in the pharmacy that is 3 CVS pharmacies at one intersection which seems unlikely. Both CVS have been fully remodeled last couple of years, the large one is now a Health-Hub prototype with clinic and expanded specialty medical supplies so neither one is going away anytime soon.
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by Bluelightspecial »

Not really surprising. I believe it's been on the "watch list" for years. The location was never great and the initial Pavilions leases were notorious for being to high. Westminster opened as a new Pavilions.....most of those have closed or changed to "Vons" branding. Most of the successful Pavilions that are still open came after the Safeway buyout of Vons. Many are previous Safeway locations.....West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Woodland Hills, South Pasadena......I think there are only a few left that opened as Pavilions that are still Pavilions...Other than the Orange County ones that opened as Pavilions I can think of only Long Beach, Burbank and maybe Thousand Oaks. I'm really surprised the Long Beach location is still a Pavilions, If I had to bet I'd say that was the next to go.
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by storewanderer »

It seems like 80k square foot supermarkets just don't work in SoCal... can't seem to get them profitable enough... or survive long term... seems to be proven time and time again...

My guess is an Asian grocer is lined up to take all or part of the location, with a large food hall type operation to take up a good chunk of the space.

Vons should have known road construction was causing the store some comp sales issues and waited it out to see how things would settle after the construction was done. If the store was actually profitable, especially seems like they should have waited this out.

In Sparks Raleys has a store at North McCarran and Pyramid; this intersection was under construction for many years and it really messed up access to the Raleys which before the construction was a very strong store. The construction nearly killed the store; they waited it out; they cut store hours, they cut departments, cut perishables, had these archaic old self checkouts that must have been 20 years old that barely worked, did a center store reset that cut a massive amount of SKUs, closed certain refrigeration... but they kept the store going. It took a while but once the construction finished slowly customers started to return to the store. Departments have been expanded again, closed refrigeration has been reopened, new self checkouts were installed to replace old ones that barely worked... the store doesn't do the business it once did but it came back to a degree.
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by veteran+ »

"It seems like 80k square foot supermarkets just don't work in SoCal... can't seem to get them profitable enough... or survive long term... seems to be proven time and time again..."

Yeah, I agree, and it makes me sad.

But I suspect it is the operators' and perhaps certain locality's fault and not the customers.

I know loads of people who would love a store like that to avoid store hopping to finish their shopping needs and avoiding TRAFFIC. You could save time and gas as well.
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by storewanderer »

veteran+ wrote: February 12th, 2022, 8:30 am

Yeah, I agree, and it makes me sad.

But I suspect it is the operators' and perhaps certain locality's fault and not the customers.

I know loads of people who would love a store like that to avoid store hopping to finish their shopping needs and avoiding TRAFFIC. You could save time and gas as well.
I think there are a number of issues. There is too much competition. It seems like they can't get these larger stores in the right locations to make them work. Also neighborhoods change over time, the CA chains are particularly stubborn when it comes to tailoring a store to its neighborhood, and it makes it more difficult for these large stores to remain viable over 20-30 years as they do in many other places.

Analyze this Vons closure more. How much grocery is Target selling? If Target did not have a fairly large grocery assortment at 20-40% cheaper prices in the same shopping center, I am sure this Vons would easily be doing $100k-$200k a week more in sales. It would be a much busier store.

There are those handfull of 80k square foot WinCo units that, in the less populated areas of NorCal, are very successful. I can't speak for SoCal as the only WinCo I've ever gone into in SoCal was around Temecula and it was reasonably busy. You would think large stores would do better in SoCal than they would in NorCal but time and time again that doesn't seem to play out.

The sweet spot for store size in CA seems to be that 40k-50k square foot size store. The successful chain who is actually building stores (Stater) is going for that size.
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: February 12th, 2022, 10:30 am
I think there are a number of issues. There is too much competition. It seems like they can't get these larger stores in the right locations to make them work. Also neighborhoods change over time, the CA chains are particularly stubborn when it comes to tailoring a store to its neighborhood, and it makes it more difficult for these large stores to remain viable over 20-30 years as they do in many other places.
Competition in the immediate area is a Whole Foods, a Vietnamese supermarket north of there a mile, a Trader Joe's 3 miles south, and a Stater Bros 2 miles west.
There is also an Albertsons a mile east on Edinger (mid 90's original Albertsons that got a Jewel remodel 15 or so years ago).

I kind of agree that CA's traditional supermarkets don't tailor stores well to ethnic neighborhoods, although there are exceptions- there are strong performing Albertsons stores in predominantly Hispanic areas, such as Chula Vista. That Chula Vista Albertsons (a former Lucky/Sav-on) is probably one of the most profitable Albertsons in the county. You have to give that store credit, as there is tough competition nearby, like Northgate and Carnival (which took over the Vons/Haggen down the street)
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Re: Vons Westminster, CA 16450 Beach Blvd

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: February 12th, 2022, 12:25 pm
Competition in the immediate area is a Whole Foods, a Vietnamese supermarket north of there a mile, a Trader Joe's 3 miles south, and a Stater Bros 2 miles west.
There is also an Albertsons a mile east on Edinger (mid 90's original Albertsons that got a Jewel remodel 15 or so years ago).

I kind of agree that CA's traditional supermarkets don't tailor stores well to ethnic neighborhoods, although there are exceptions- there are strong performing Albertsons stores in predominantly Hispanic areas, such as Chula Vista. That Chula Vista Albertsons (a former Lucky/Sav-on) is probably one of the most profitable Albertsons in the county. You have to give that store credit, as there is tough competition nearby, like Northgate and Carnival (which took over the Vons/Haggen down the street)
There has been something historically with Albertsons in SoCal making some serious attempts to keep stores going in neighborhoods where you would not expect them to survive. I'm not sure exactly what they have done in some of these locations to keep the stores viable but there seems to be something they do, differently than Vons, that keeps stores going in ethnic locations specifically Hispanic areas, that other chains would be unable to keep going. Tough to imagine they are benefiting from goodwill Lucky built with Hispanic customers in the 90's but I suppose it is possible.
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