Albertsons at Power/Queen Creek in Gilbert closing

[grmi66]

There was a Safeway store across the street from my subdivision in Tucson that closed a few months ago. One big reason was that it had been an old ABCO store before it became a Safeway. The store was too small to be profitable, no way to squeeze in a pharmacy counter into the location. I chatted with the leasing agent about the property and he told me that a lot of these older Safeways and Albertsons are too small to be profitable as grocery stores and too big to be stand alone pharmacies. When the leasing agent passed along the information to every other grocery related chain in Arizona about this empty building, they all took a pass.

The grocery business is pretty tough, need to have the ideal neighborhood demographics to make it work. I used to have a job going into grocery stores to do marketing campaigns for various companies and went into a ton of Safeways and Albertsons in the Phoenix area. The stores that Safeway are remodeling and upgrading have a new and improved pharmacy area along with those tiny medical clinics. Walk into any Albertsons store and it feels like 1985 inside of the store, dated and worn out.

[MsVulcan500]

Originally Posted by grmi66

Walk into any Albertsons store and it feels like 1985 inside of the store, dated and worn out.

That's what I like about Albertsons. No one is shopping there so you are in and out fast! My closest Albertsons is across the street from Safeway too, and I can't imagine both of them remaining for too long. Especially now that ads are combined and they have the same things on sale at the same time for the same prices. It's redundant. The only grocery stores missing in the immediate vicinity are Whole Foods and Trader Joes. I'm not a huge fan of either, but I think our area could support either one.

[Bondurant]

Originally Posted by phetaroi

I just moved into the area, and I'm disgusted with Whole Foods. Certainly an area like Surprise, Sun City West, and this whole end of the valley could support a Whole Foods. But nope.

You're disgusted with Whole Foods because you chose to move to an area without a Whole Foods?

[Pink Jazz]

One thing that a new Whole Foods store in that location would bring to the area is that it would likely enable Prime Now delivery in Queen Creek. All of Gilbert is included in Prime Now, but Queen Creek is left out.

[Pink Jazz]

I was at that Albertsons today, and according to an employee, right now no new tenants signed a lease for the space.