Albertsons Florida Blog

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Florida, Meet Safeway - And other Albertsons and Florida Supermarket News

I'm going to apologize in advance for my horrible photo editing skills:

Future Safeway #3304

503 E Altamonte Drive, Altamonte Springs, FL

Original Photo courtesy of Adam R.

Future Safeway #4402

10500 Ulmerton Road E, Largo, FL - Largo Mall

Original Image from Bing Maps - I don't have any pictures of this store at the moment

Future Safeway #4319

900 E. Commercial Boulevard, Oakland Park, FL

So it looks like 2016 is off to a busy start for Florida supermarkets and retail. Back on the 11th, Albertsons made their official public release confirming the conversions of the remaining three Albertsons Florida stores to the Safeway brand. It's a bittersweet moment, as Florida loses yet another supermarket chain to the grasp of Publix. At least out of this loss there will be a gain, as Safeway will be making their grand entrance into Florida under their name for the first time. Safeway did have a very short presence in Florida back in the late 80's and early 90's under the Save and Pack name. Save and Pack, however, was a warehouse style store, kind of like a Sam's Club/Save A Lot hybrid type place, and not a true supermarket. If you would like to read more about Save and Pack, check out this post I did about them here, which also includes a list of Save and Pack's former locations.

Albertsons is planning to spend around $10 million between the three stores to upgrade them to Safeway. According Sidney Hopper, president of Albertsons' Houston Division, the remodels will bring "contemporary décor packages, new digital signs and menu boards, a natural/organic zone and living well products. The stores will also feature expanded specialty foods selections, more local products, expanded floral and wine areas, enhanced food service offerings and new Starbucks in each location." These stores are finally getting the love they have long been deprived of, and hopefully their new offerings can help them better compete with Publix.

From reading quite a few articles about the conversions, and the e-mails and comments that have been coming into the blog recently about them, all the speculation seems to be pointing to one thing: There are probably more Safeways coming if Albertsons is going through all of this effort with only three stores. More than likely, if more Safeways are to open, most of the new locations would be in existing buildings or through the acquisition of some or all locations from another chain (with the most likely candidate being Winn-Dixie). I hope the new name means a new start for Albertsons, and that Safeway will be able to fend off Publix and possibly grow to more than three stores. It doesn't really make sense to rebrand three random stores if there wasn't some kind of larger goal out there. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what that is going to be.

I already linked to the articles about the Safeway conversions in the Orlando and Tampa Bay Businesss Journals in the Breaking News post the other day. However, here are two more articles about the conversions from the Tampa Bay Times and Supermarket News (which you can read here and here respectively). I highly suggest reading the article from Supermarket News, as they did a very good write up on the conversions.

Like I mentioned the other day, I'll be compiling a separate store list for Safeway Florida locations sometime in the near future and adding it to the blog. The main focus of this blog will still be the Albertsons Florida stores which operated from 1974-2016. If Safeway does end up exploding to a bunch of locations outside of these three, I'll see how to go from there. They technically are still Albertsons Florida, but I'll worry about that later.

Keep scrolling down for some other news about some former Albertsons locations, and some tidbits from Publix and Winn-Dixie:

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The Fate Has Been Determined for the Former Vero Beach Albertsons

Albertsons #4357

1750 US 1, Vero Beach, FL

A new store will be opening at the site of the former Vero Beach Albertsons, which closed on June 9, 2012. The store opening here is the one I figured would eventually end up opening here: our old pal Walmart Neighborhood Market. I had a feeling Walmart would want this place. Walmart doesn't have any presence on this side of town since they relocated from their old discount store on US 1 to a new discount store on the western fringes of town on Route 60 back in the mid-90's. The new discount store was converted into a Supercenter only two or three years after it was built. Publix has two stores on this side of town, Winn-Dixie has none, and there's a Fresh Market as well. After seeing what Walmart did to the former St. Lucie West Albertsons (#4466), I'm sure there won't be much of Albertsons left once Walmart begins construction. There's also a good chance Walmart might just tear the old building down for and build from scratch. If you would like to check out the Vero Beach Albertsons, this store was featured on AFB back in October 2015, and you can read the post here. I went picture crazy when I came to this store that day, so it's past life won't be forgotten. I was by this store two weeks ago, and it was still empty for the time being as Walmart gets everything settled in order to start construction. I found this article mentioning Walmart's interest in the building, which you can read here. Thank you to the friend of AFB that alerted me to this, and the next little piece below:

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The Fate Has been Determined for the Former Valrico Albertsons

Image from Bing Maps

Albertsons #4436

3313 Lithia Pinecrest Road, Valrico, FL - Albertsons Plaza

This Albertsons opened in 1997, and was another casualty from June 9, 2012. It has been sitting empty since then. However, Albertsons has just recently sold the property to a natural foods supermarket. From the property record, I think (but am not completely sure) that natural foods store is Whole Foods. The new property owner's name is coded on the property record as WEG Valrico. WEG is an acronym meaning Whole Earth Generation that Whole Foods uses. (I know someone out there was thinking this when they saw WEG Valrico - No, Wegmans is not coming to Florida). I'm not completely sure the new occupant is Whole Foods or if my theory is right, but a natural foods store of some type is going to be moving in here. Whole Foods currently has two stores in Tampa, but none out in the suburbs of Hillsborough County, where this store is located. There is already a Fresh Market less than a mile away from here that opened in 2014, along with a Publix that's been around since the 2000's. If the new occupant is Whole Foods, they will probably be doing some work to the building. I don't have any pictures of this store, so if you happen to be by it, feel free to send any pictures in.

Publix Names New CEO

Publix's current CEO, Ed Crenshaw, announced that he will be retiring on April 30, 2016, although he will continue to serve on the board of directors after retiring. Crenshaw has been CEO at Publix since 2008, and has worked in various positions throughout the company for the last 42 years. Publix's new CEO will be Todd Jones, the company's current president. The big thing about this news is that this will be the first time in Publix's history that a descendant of their founder, George Jenkins, will not be serving as CEO. You can read an article about this on Supermarket News here. Thanks to the person who e-mailed this news in.

Winn-Dixie Debuts a New Decor, Again

Photo courtesy of the Phenix City, AL Ledger-Enquirer

For the fourth time since 2009, Winn-Dixie has unveiled yet another new decor package. This new decor will replace the less than two year old "Green Interior". Winn-Dixie's new decor was timed to debut the same day that Winn-Dixie launched their new Down Down Prices ad campaign (complete with commercial), which is supposed to feature new, lower permanent prices throughout the store. The new decor jumps from that mostly green theme to a mostly red theme. I actually think the red looks better than the green, and red says Winn-Dixie more than light green did, but the green interior seemed classier. This store in Phenix City, AL was the first to get the new interior, although Winn-Dixie says they plan to remodel 50 stores to this look this year. You can read the original article about this store's remodel here (it has a few more pictures of the store as well). As for a name for this interior, I say we call it the "Down Down Interior". Let's see how long this look will last. Thanks to the commentor on the Winn-Dixie of the Future (now Winn-Dixie of the very distant past) post for giving me the link to that article.

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That's all the news I have for now (which was quite a bit). Thanks again to all the people who sent in links or information about all of these news pieces. I'll be sure to stay on top of the Safeway conversions, and let everyone know if anything else happens. More Albertsons coming this Sunday!

Until the next time,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger

Monday, January 11, 2016

BREAKING NEWS>>>>>SAFEWAY FLORIDA CONFIRMED!!!!!!!

Thanks Pseudo3D for catching that article for me! The Orlando Business Journal and Tampa Bay Business Journal have articles on the conversions, which you can read here and here respectively. I'll write a more detailed post later this week, but for now, here it is, that hard evidence you all craved so much. Thank you original source! Also, the original post I released back in November about the conversions has been reinstated and updated for everyone to read once again below. Also, expect a Safeway Florida store list to appear on the blog sometime in the future.

AFB

Goodbye, Albertsons Florida - 1974-2016

Originally posted 11/24/15 - pulled shortly after until further notice received - reinstated and updated 1/11/16

That day I've been dreading has finally come, yet finally had to begin to accept. The Albertsons name will be no more in Florida by Spring 2016. However, there is a slight twist to this from the company full of surprises. Those three remaining Albertsons stores aren't closing, or being sold to Publix, or anything like that. They're dropping the Albertsons name to become Safeway stores (I definitely did not see that coming)!

Thanks to an anonymous contributor for e-mailing that in to AFB. This name switcheroo seems to have been a sudden decision, as Albertsons halted all work on the remodels of the last three stores because of this (which clears up a lot for me, and for our next post). According to the contributor, Albertsons has since resumed the remodels, but these current remodels will now be switching the stores to the Safeway look and feel. While Albertsons is finally going to end up like Kash n' Karry, Food Lion, Kroger, A&P, and all those many other chains that tried to establish a Florida division, at least Albertsons will continue to live on through their new sister chain Safeway, and with the Albertsons Florida Blog. I guess this recent news is going to make my upcoming post on December 6th even more special than I thought.

Goodbye, Albertsons Florida. You had the most successful run of any non-Florida based supermarket chain that tried to establish a Florida division, lasting 42 years and operating 170 stores over that time frame. Some Florida divisions barely lasted two years, so I have a lot of respect for you Albertsons, being able to take on Pubix for as long as you did, even though you eventually fell to them in the end, like all the others. I hope your Safeway division stores aren't too much different from the Albertsons stores. Maybe this new name will be the start of a new era of supermarkets in Florida, but all it does is add more mystery to the entire remaining presence of Albertsons/Safeway in this state. It just seems odd to me that Albertsons would bring the Safeway name to Florida. Has the Albertsons name been tarnished that much here? This will bring Safeway back to Florida for the first time since the 90's when they sold off their relatively small, short lived Save and Pack warehouse division of stores. That means this will be the first appearance of the actual Safeway name ever on a store in Florida.

The Safeway Florida stores are expected to be fully up and running by Spring 2016. If you want to experience Albertsons Florida one last time, your time is running out.

Anyway, good luck with Florida, Safeway, and I wish your stores the very best. Let's see what you can do in this state, and let's see how this works out. I've heard Publix is some pretty stiff competition, but they really need someone to really give them a scare. Will that be Safeway?

So as we mark the end of yet another Florida supermarket era, I will continue to keep everyone updated on this.

Until the next time,

The Albertsons (and now Safeway I suppose) Florida Blogger

Sunday, January 10, 2016

A Tale of Two Krogers - Part 1

They Came...They Saw...They Failed Miserably.

Well, that saying would apply to most of the list of supermarket chains that have ever tried operating a Florida division, some to a bigger extent than others. The feature of today's post certainly was no exception to that statement, especially with their very short lived rebranding campaign. Today, the Albertsons Florida Blog is going Krogering, bringing to you Part 1 of a special two part Bonus Buy Store series. In this series, we'll be taking a close look at some former Kroger Florida locations and their evolution from SupeRx Food and Drug into Florida Choice and finally into the history books. These old Kroger Florida stores have some unique traits to them, and we'll take a look at two of the best preserved transformations of Kroger Florida stores, with today's post featuring the former SupeRx Food and Drug and Florida Choice stores located in Titusville, FL. I'll be going into the histories of both of these former Kroger banners in more detail as we look at each store. Kroger's short lived Florida division back in the 80's is quite fascinating, and their buildings were rather unique as well, as they were unlike most of Kroger's typical store designs of that era. So, let's jump into this, starting from the beginning with the Titusville SupeRx Food and Drug:

SupeRx Food and Drug #5XX

3636 S. Washington Ave. (US 1), Titusville, FL

SupeRx first opened this store in 1983, about three years after Kroger first debuted the SupeRx Food and Drug name in Florida at a store identical to this one about 45 minutes south of here in Indian Harbour Beach. These SupeRx Food and Drug stores are easily recognizable with their rounded canopies and rounded columns that line the front of the building. Even the corners of the building are rounded off. These stores were being built during the period where Kroger was building their famous "Greenhouse" model stores throughout the rest of the country.

However, as the 80's rolled along, Kroger saw these small SupeRx stores weren't performing so well. In an effort to increase sales and better compete with more upscale stores like Publix and Goodings, Kroger decided to rebrand and reimage their Florida SupeRx Food and Drug stores with a new name, Florida Choice, in 1986. As a part of the rebranding and reimaging of SupeRx, most of these small SupeRx stores, although fairly new at the time, were replaced with new Florida Choice buildings nearby. Most of these Florida Choice relocations were done though Kroger's buyout of A&P's Florida Family Mart stores in 1987, however a few lucky stores stores not already near a Family Mart got brand new Kroger built Florida Choice structures built for them. There weren't many ground up Florida Choice stores built. I can only think of seven completed and two partially built ones to have ever existed, but I may be missing a few from my count. This store relocated in 1988 to one of those ground up built Florida Choice buildings, and the store to be featured in part two of this series also relocated to a Kroger built Florida Choice building. But more on Florida Choice in a moment. It's time to get back to SupeRx Food and Drug:

As you probably could tell, the old Titusville SupeRx has since become an Ace Hardware. Ace Hardware moved into this building sometime around 2005. Between SupeRx leaving and Ace moving in, this building housed offices for Aerospace Interconnect Systems. I'm not really sure what that was (probably some kin of technology company that worked with nearby NASA), but they moved into this building in 1986 and went out of business in the early 2000's.

Also, I'm not exactly sure how SupeRx's original entryway was set up, but I believe there was only one set of doors that served as both the entrance and exit, with that door being the one further to the right, which is currently Ace's exit. Other than possibly adding in an extra door, Ace did practically nothing to the exterior of this building.

A closer look at some of the rounded detailing along the front of the building.

Heading inside and turning to the left. The building still has a little bit of a supermarket feel to it on the inside. There really aren't too many really obvious features from this building's short 5 years as a supermarket left unfortunately, and in the transition of this building into offices and then into Ace Hardware, I'm sure a bit of work was done to the place.

Ace added on a garden center to the left side of the building.

Going back inside for a few more views of the interior. This is an aisle over on the left side of the store.

And a few more interior shots from the other side of the building. No clues of this building's past life over here either.

Another quick look at the exterior before we head to our next stop. Another thing I would like to point out though is that all of these SupeRx stores also had an attached liquor store. The liquor store was that small storefront off the the right side of the building here.

The former SupeRx Food and Drug liquor store, now repurposed as some kind of watersports/bait shop.

A quick look at the loading dock.

Now it's time to leave SupeRx behind and head a little further west into town to see the second store to be featured in this post, the former Titusville Florida Choice store:

Florida Choice #620

1450 Harrison St., Titusville, FL

This store replaced the SupeRx Food and Drug we just took a look at in early 1988. This store only lasted a few months as Florida Choice, since Kroger announced they would pull the plug on Florida Choice and leave Florida in July 1988. This store was one of 9 Florida Choice locations Kroger sold to Gooding's in September 1988. Gooding's opened here later that year, and they remained in this location until 1997, when they pulled out of Brevard County as a part of the scaling back in the late 90's. This place has been vacant ever since.

If you look really close at this photo, and the next three, you can see all the labelscars from Gooding's signage.

The Gooding's signage on the front of the building would have looked something like this. The labelscars are extremely clear if you come here in person.

As for what Florida Choice's logo would have looked like on the building, picture the logo on the bag below up there (although on the building, I think it was all written out on one line, with the palm tree to the very left - but that's just a guess based on what the facade looks like)

As for the bag itself, it's a part of my personal collection, and one of the rarest retail pieces that I own, considering how short lived Florida Choice was and how long ago all of their stores closed.

These Florida Choice stores are absolutely massive. I had a vary hard time trying to get the entire exterior of this place in one photo. This store is 58,325 square feet - a monster sized store for 1988, even bigger than what Albertsons was building at the time! Only one of these Florida Choice buildings continues to live on as a supermarket, though - a Publix on N. Military Trail in West Palm Beach (that building was a slightly different style than this one).

Everything you see on this building is original to when it was first built by Kroger in 1988. The blue tile trim, the design of the entryway, and possibly even the paint (which was very old and dirty)!

Looking down the left side of the building. The attached liquor store's entrance is behind those boards you see in this photo.

Those boarded up windows you see looked into the liquor store.

Looking under the front canopy to where the entryway into the store is located.

Even the entryway is huge! On the far left (where the white paint blotches are on the plywood) was the entrance into the liquor store. To the very right of that were a set of doors leading into the store (behind the big piece of plywood), and next to that was a set of exit doors (those doors you see that are partially exposed). Further down was another set of entry and exit doors into the store.

Closeup of the left side entrance and exit doors into the main store.

Plywood everywhere. I think vandals smashed in many of the windows, as there was broken glass on the concrete, and I was able to get a peek behind one of the boards to see the glass was missing behind it.

One of the right side doors peeking out from behind the boards...

The far right side of the front of the building.

Looking back down the front of the building from the right side. The other entry doors are located behind that white painted plywood.

Looking toward the liquor store.

Here's that broken window that I mentioned I saw earlier. I guess they ran out of plywood to cover this hole with. It's way up high anyway, and I don't think anyone could fit though it, but...

...my hand sure could fit though it! Not the most spectacular interior shot in the world, but you can see the distinctive squiggly tile pattern on the ground from Florida Choice. People were definitely getting in here at one point, as you can probably tell by that barely visible pallet jack the floor with graffiti on it. I wonder just how trashed the interior has gotten after sitting empty since 1997. It doesn't look too bad from this viewpoint, but that insulation on the ground in the background doesn't look like a good sign. And if people were getting in here, I'm sure a lot of the copper wiring and pipes have been stolen. In Part 2 of A Tale of Two Krogers, I have some much nicer interior pictures of a former Florida Choice store to bring to you than this.

A few final closeups of the former liquor store before we leave the old Florida Choice.

Looking out into the big empty parking lot. A heavy afternoon sun shower passed through while I was taking pictures here, so I had a little bit of time to kill. This store wasn't really placed in the best location. While Harrison St. is a decently busy road, this store was plopped right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, off the beaten path for retail in the area, which is mostly located along US 1 (to the east), Route 50 (to the south), and Route 406 (to the north). There's a Winn-Dixie across the street from here that seems to OK business, but this still isn't the busiest area, especially for a retail company looking for a building of this size. The Titusville SupeRx had a much better location, in my opinion. Also, according a property listing I found online, the owner of this property has restricted the possible future tenants of this building to the following tenants: Family Dollar, Bill's Dollar Store, Fred's, Dollar Tree, 99 Cents Only, Deals, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, Big Lots, and Walmart Supercenter. First of all, many of those stores don't operate in Florida at all, or in this part of the state. Dollar General built a new store next door to this old Florida Choice in 2010, and Walgreens built a new store across the street in the mid 2000's. This location is too off the beaten path for Big Lots, who likes to have their stores in busy retail strips, and this lot is nowhere near big enough for a Walmart Supercenter. A Neighborhood Market, maybe, but not a Supercenter. What I'm trying to say is that this building is more than likely going to be sitting empty here for quite a long time more, unless the owner has decided to lift that restriction.

Anyway, now it's time for some satellite images. Let's start with some Bird's Eye aerials of these two stores, courtesy of Bing Maps:

SupeRx Food and Drug first:

Front

Right Side

Back

Left Side

And now for Florida Choice:

Front

Right Side

Back

Left Side

And now for some historic aerial images, courtesy of Google Earth. Again, first up is SupeRx Food and Drug:

Former SupeRx Food and Drug - 2014

Former SupeRx Food and Drug - 2005 - Ace has yet to move in yet.

Former SupeRx Food and Drug - 1999 - This image and the next one were taken when this building was occupied by Aerospace Interconnect Systems

And now it's Florida Choice's turn:

Former Florida Choice - 2014

Former Florida Choice - 2005

Former Florida Choice - 1999

Former Florida Choice - 1994 - Back when Gooding's was still open.

And to conclude this post, here's a map showing the locations of the two stores. They are located two miles apart, with the SupeRx Food and Drug store located right on US 1 across from the river and next to Searstown Mall (which still goes by that name, and still has the Sears open) in the bottom right of the map. The Florida Choice store is up in the top left of the map, located back in the residential neighborhood. While the old SupeRx Food and Drug building was able to to find new life while still keeping much of its original character, the much larger and (back in the day) nicer Florida Choice building continues to rot away. And whatever eventually may decide to move into that building has a large project in store for them.

Anyway, look out for Part 2 of A Tale of Two Krogers to be coming at a later date. I don't know when that post will be coming to the blog at the moment, but in the meantime, there are plenty more Albertsons stores to see, along with some other bonus stores that may pop up as well. Also, if for some reason you happen to have some old photos of a SupeRx Food and Drug or Florida Choice from when either of those stores were still in business, feel free to send them in to the blog, as I'd really like to see what one of these stores looked like back in their glory days.

So until the next time,

The Albertsons Florida Blogger