Safeway to open new store in Surprise, AZ

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arizonaguy
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Safeway to open new store in Surprise, AZ

Post by arizonaguy »

Announced yesterday:

https://www.yourvalley.net/stories/safe ... ise,290986

The Phoenix Business Journal Article here lists the details: https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/new ... uZmEJkuGPk

Called Sterling Grove Shopping Center, the $27 million retail project will consist of a 63,290-square-foot Safeway, 20,000 square feet of connected retail space and 22,500 square feet between five standalone buildings on about 20 acres in Surprise.

This is about the 3rd or 4th new build store announced in metro Phoenix over the last 5 years or so. It seems that the division is still important enough to the company that they keep building new stores here (even if they purged several stores immediately pre / post merger).
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Re: Safeway to open new store in Surprise, AZ

Post by storewanderer »

arizonaguy wrote: March 11th, 2022, 7:17 pm Announced yesterday:

https://www.yourvalley.net/stories/safe ... ise,290986

The Phoenix Business Journal Article here lists the details: https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/new ... uZmEJkuGPk

Called Sterling Grove Shopping Center, the $27 million retail project will consist of a 63,290-square-foot Safeway, 20,000 square feet of connected retail space and 22,500 square feet between five standalone buildings on about 20 acres in Surprise.

This is about the 3rd or 4th new build store announced in metro Phoenix over the last 5 years or so. It seems that the division is still important enough to the company that they keep building new stores here (even if they purged several stores immediately pre / post merger).
Also that division has built new stores in Las Vegas and El Paso in recent years.
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Re: Safeway to open new store in Surprise, AZ

Post by jamcool »

Notice it is being built as a Safeway, not an Albertsons. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Albertsons brand slowly goes away in Arizona
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Re: Safeway to open new store in Surprise, AZ

Post by storewanderer »

jamcool wrote: March 12th, 2022, 8:37 am Notice it is being built as a Safeway, not an Albertsons. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Albertsons brand slowly goes away in Arizona
I think the sticking point is a union vs. non-union situation between the 2 banners in Arizona. I expect the use of the Albertsons banner to continue for that reason. Also I doubt you'd ever see them convert El Paso, St. George, or Las Vegas to Safeway.

I am not sure why the Safeway banner is favored other than its mandatory club card use. Also maybe since the consumer expectation for Safeway is of a lower product selection than Albertsons (especially in drug/non food) they find it less expensive to operate the Safeway banner.
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Re: Safeway to open new store in Surprise, AZ

Post by jamcool »

Safeway has been in Arizona since the 20s, when they bought the Pay N Takit chain. Albertsons has only been here since 1990.
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Re: Safeway to open new store in Surprise, AZ

Post by storewanderer »

jamcool wrote: March 12th, 2022, 12:26 pm Safeway has been in Arizona since the 20s, when they bought the Pay N Takit chain. Albertsons has only been here since 1990.
I don't sense much of the way in "roots" for Safeway in AZ. Maybe it is different in some of the smaller towns (I haven't felt it in Bullhead, Globe, or Safford though). Same could be said for Albertsons. So maybe the banner doesn't even matter. Maybe the issue why they have done so poorly historically is the store, pricing, and service level. Frys and Wal Mart have just clobbered them over time. While they appear to be doing better the past 5ish years it remains to be seen if that momentum can be sustained.
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Re: Safeway to open new store in Surprise, AZ

Post by arizonaguy »

jamcool wrote: March 12th, 2022, 8:37 am Notice it is being built as a Safeway, not an Albertsons. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Albertsons brand slowly goes away in Arizona
All new build post merger stores in Arizona have been bannered as Safeway. They even moved a Safeway across the street to a former Albertsons building which closed a few years prior (bannering the building as Safeway). The new build stores are all from the Albertsons store design template and are basically pre-merger Albertsons stores with Safeway bannering.
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