Anyway, more on this to come after my summer break concludes. For the complete article on this development, please click here.
AFB
Thursday, June 28, 2018
It's Over - Publix to Buy Florida Safeway Stores
Some quick breaking news - Safeway Florida is over after a two year run. It was announced today that Publix will buy the three remaining Florida Safeway stores. The stores will continue to operate as Safeway until September 2018, at which point they will transition to Publix. It sounds like a case of Publix trying to wipe out what little competition they have left in Florida to me, as Publix already has newer locations across the street from all three of the Safeway stores. The article suggests that the Safeway stores will become Publix, but I don't know if the nearby Publix locations will remain when the Safeway stores reopen or if they will close. I was not expecting this at all, and I'm surprised but not surprised to see something like this happen. For all of the Safeway Florida fans out there, enjoy Safeway while you can. I thought the Safeway stores were doing well, but I guess it was too costly to supply those stores or something. After dumping $10 million into those three stores two years ago, it really seemed promising that Safeway could be successful. So good-bye Safeway. It was nice knowing you, and I wish you could have stayed around longer. Two years was not enough time - just to get more Publix in the end nonetheless!
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Guess I jumped the gun a bit on uploading my own photo breaking the news to flickr, but I wasn't sure how soon you'd be able to get a photo or blog post ready :P Sad news indeed. Hopefully you'll be able to make it back to all three stores before they close...!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a pure real estate move to me. Lately, Publix's M.O. has been to acquire their stores' real estate.
ReplyDeleteSeems odd to have two Publix stores operating across the street from each other, but it has been done before (northeast St. Petersburg).
According to Pinellas County Property Appraiser, Publix does not own their current store across from Largo Mall. That store opened in 2005 and is roughly 49,000 square feet.
However, Supervalu (Albertsons) owns the Largo Safeway property.
The Safeway was the first Jewel-Osco store to open in the Bay Area. It opened in 1989 with the rest of Largo Mall and IIRC is around 45,000 sq. ft..
Will Publix fold their existing store and move into the Safeway location?
That makes the most sense to me, plenty of foot traffic generated from Largo Mall.
Wouldn't surprise me if a few years down the road Publix knocks down the Jewelbertsway location and builds their own store there.
In all three cases, there is a Publix across the street from the soon-to-be former Safeway.
ReplyDeletePublix does not own their stores' property in Largo or Oakland Park.
My guess as to how this will go down is Publix will take over the Safeways in Largo and Oakland Park and close their existing locations, while the Altamonte Safeway will close outright.
The Safeway location in Altamonte May become a situation like in Dr. Phillips. There they operate two stores across the street from each other but one has the cooking school.
DeletePublix plans to keep Publix stores 742, 750, and 1034 and Safeway stores 3401, 4319, and 4402 open. These would be three additional instances of Publix operating two stores within proximity of each other in Florida.
DeleteThat doesn't make sense that they are doing thatm
DeleteUngh! This is just disgusting! I'm so tempted to leave Florida one day in the future, just to live in a state that has more fair grocery competition. Seriously folks, when you think about it for a while, How great is it going to be when Publix has such market domination that they can pretty much set the food prices in Florida? It's really coming down to 4 options for groceries now: Walmart, Publix, Aldi or Save-A-Lot, and an ocasional Winn-Dixie. Those specialty stores like Lucky's, Sprouts, Fresh Market, and Trader Joes don't even count (in my opinion), because you can't do your regular shopping at a reasonable cost.
ReplyDeleteOh well, I was afraid this might happen after it had been so long since those stores had opened and no announcement of an expansion. Honestly, if this Rite Aid/Albertsons merger doesn't go through, They may just fold up altogether within the next 5-10 years. It's a sad shame. And all three of the Safeways in Florida were rated at 4.4/5 stars on Google! Someone needs to stop Publix from an all out monopoly, but it's obviously not Albertsons/Safeway!
I agree with you. Publix is way over priced on evertything. I like Safeway as they have great sales on meat, seafood among other item. If you want a quick meal they have a lot to choose from. Publix has the same old boring stuff all the time. They don't do anything to change things up. There quality is also no anything like it used to be. I guess when you have all that money you can buy anything you want. No longer will I shop at Publix!!
DeleteThis absolutely sucks. I hate Publix. They are too overpriced. I wonder if Safeway didn’t give up after Winn Dixie was able to get financial backing to stay open during bankruptcy and safely exit. I believe Safeway was holding out hope to purchase the Winn Dixie chain and since they are staying open and weren’t forced to sell their plans changed.
ReplyDeletePublix's prices are better than Winn-Dixie's extra high prices.
DeleteThe window of opportunity for anyone to acquire Winn-Dixie appears to have closed. No one wants to acquire a disaster.
Publix pricing is generally better, either outright or after their myriad store coupons. Sad to see the Largo Mall Safeway go, though, since it was the grocery store with the latest hours that was not a Walmart. I like Publix, but the loss of options is not good. I don't fancy having my grocery options limited to Publix, WD, Target, and Walmart. I'd almost welcome Food Lion at this point.
DeleteWell, it's certainly disappointing and an end to an era. But at the same time, we all knew that they weren't able to sustain the three stores with nothing else going on (no distribution deal, no additional stores, etc.) whether the Rite Aid deal happened or not. I also imagine that the fact that the Florida Safeway stores did not participate in the Monopoly promotion may have contributed to it (based on how Florida's gambling laws work). I hope Albertsons got some decent money out of it...they're in better shape with probably even better volume than they were a decade ago.
ReplyDeleteIt's also a shame how much Winn-Dixie has deteriorated, and how unlikely it is for Albertsons to come back that way.
They wont. Oakland Park for example will probably close. The Publix across the street is newer and much larger
ReplyDeleteI was planning on visiting the one closest to Orlando next spring. Guess that won't happen now.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a fan of a company that seems to have a near monopoly on something myself.
I heard from one of their employees that the stores will be convered to a new concept called GreenWise, which happens to be Publix’ organic brand. Maybe a new concept trying to rival Whole Foods and Lucky’s Market?
ReplyDeleteWow! Sad to hear...
ReplyDeleteSafeway sold these stores because the nearest distribution center is in Texas. It's cheaper to shutter/sell the stores than to build a whole new distribution center to boost expansion, and unfortunately, that leaves Winn Dixie and Publix as the last major grocery store chains in Florida (Unless you count Walmart, Whole Foods, Aldi, and Trader Joes). I used to live in Florida back when Albertsons still had a decent footprint there. Two of my local Albertsons closed in Lake Mary and one was replaced with a Publix right around when I moved to California . Albertsons stores are actually pretty decent in Southern California, kinda surprising that Winn Dixie would outlast them. Maybe they will fold and Safeway/Albertsons can re-establish their footprint in those stores and their distribution centers.
ReplyDeleteWhile you do think there could be a monopoly going on in Floridan however, a majority of former Haggen locations in SoCal, Oregon, Arizona, and Wahington that were originally Albertsons/Safeway(Vons) but had to be divested for the merger were just scooped right back up from Albertsons after Haggen went bankrupt (along with the remaining Haggen footprint itself in Washington). Florida is not the only place dealing with a monopoly, but in both cases, it's probably better than empty storefronts.
Also, I read in some article that Publix plans not to close any of the stores and is going to renovate them. Publix will find some value to the old Safeway's because they can add a cooking school, and it will boost the expansion of in-store Starbucks in Publix stores as Safeway added those to it's stores when opening a few years back.
Let's see if this comments actually goes through...
DeleteI read that Albertsons/Safeway closed its Houston distribution center, which was not too long after the Florida Safeway closure announcement. They are consolidating things with their Dallas facility. That could be an additional reason for the closures.
Safeway and Albertsons had much better prices and products.
ReplyDeletePublixs is now a high priced monopoly
It’s official. The Safeway in Altamonte is officially closed. Last day of business was Friday 8/24
ReplyDelete