After a very long few days of moving, it's time for me to start posting again! I'm almost all settled in to my new place in Queen Anne -- which, if you know much about the socioeconomic geography of Seattle, is not exactly somewhere you'd expect me to live! It's one of the top neighborhoods of Seattle for wealthy, stuck-up old money types -- the kind of place I like to grumble about on this blog. But while I certainly wouldn't have paid a premium to live around here, after a lot of thought I decided that I wasn't willing to pay a premium to not live around here -- this was one of the cheapest condos I looked at. (Oh, and that answers why I'm moving again already -- thanks to COVID, interest rates are super low these days, and most people want houses rather than condos, so they've dropped in value over the last year -- making it so I could actually afford to buy a place of my own, finally!) Next time I have an open slot, I'll be doing my traditional introductory series of my new Safeway, which isn't one I've posted yet this time!
Anyways, on to this picture -- this is a panorama taken (a few minutes ago) from the roof deck of the condo building (certainly not the view from the unit itself... no way would I have been able to afford a condo with a view!). From left to right, you can see the main part of Queen Anne Hill, Lower Queen Anne with the Cascades in the background, the new office towers of South Lake Union, the Space Needle with Amazon's arena below, the main part of downtown, the other arenas, Mount Rainier with the port below (if the volcano ever goes off, the lahars may well reach all the way to the port!), West Seattle, and (barely visible due to the trees and sunset) the Olympics. I suspect I'll be spending a lot of time up here as the weather gets nicer!
I'll be back for real tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll even be all unpacked by then!
Congrats on the new place! The view looks really good. It certainly beats a view of downtown Houston...not that I have one or particularly care to have one, lol. I'm sure the posts about your new Safeway will be full of comments about the stuck-up types who shop there, lol. I suppose you'll have to get some photos of the Safeway parking lot just so I can assess just how stuck-up the area might be, lol!
ReplyDeleteHopefully you bought some Martha Stewart chinaware from the Macy's closing sale as a housewarming present to yourself! Ok, maybe not, lol.
Speaking of moves, here's a small retail enthusiast version of a housewarming gift for you that is move-related. It's a video from 1983 about Safeway moving out of a Marina store (ok, maybe you won't like this video after all, lol) in the Dallas area and moving into an experimental design of a store Safeway was trying out. It's really quite strange. The interior has an odd design that was not completely unusual in 1980s warehouse-style stores that were still kind of new at that time, but the exterior of the store is totally strange. Also, at the very end of the video is a clip of a Safeway Greenhouse store. Yes, you read that correctly, a Safeway Greenhouse store! I even had to ask Retail Retell about this because it's so strange. The best we can guess is that it is a former Kroger Greenhouse store that had somehow closed in 1983 or earlier for whatever odd reason. Maybe it is a Safeway design though and maybe you know something about it.
Link: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1246139/m1/
Thanks! Ha, the Safeway I'm going to be shopping at is down the hill in a more "normal" neighborhood, so there probably won't be quite so much for me to grumble about. But my parents' 20-plus-year-old cars certainly looked a bit out of place when they were moving me in! 🙂
DeleteI love that 80s triangular-truss design! Not as much as a Marina store of course, but still... That building doesn't look much like a grocery store, though -- it looks like some sort of governmental building to me, since we have quite a few of those from that era! That greenhouse store is weird too, but looks to me more like a Safeway knockoff of the Kroger design than a converted store (unless Kroger built ones with those cutaway walls below the greenhouse -- that would not be cheap or easy to retrofit into an existing store for structural reasons). I was hoping one of those oddball stores would look like the former East Puyallup Safeway, a seriously bizarre Safeway that's probably from a similar era, but nope!
I don't know about Seattle, and the area near your new local Safeway specifically, but it seems like there are a lot more 20+ year old cars in Oregon and in far northern California than there are here in Texas or just about anywhere else. I was looking at some modern photos from around Sacramento a couple of years ago and it looked like a Toyota showroom from 1989, lol.
DeleteThat's a good point about the cutaway walls at that Safeway. Kroger Greenhouses did have cutaways, but I think they were usually square and not slightly rounded like that Safeway. Maybe it is a Safeway knockoff? Who knows, I wonder what Retail Retell thinks about all of this if he's reading this.
That East Puyallup Safeway is really something. I can't say I've seen that before. If it is from the 1980s, it's probably from the late 1980s and Safeway exited Dallas in 1987 so I don't know if I'll ever find something like that in the database. It's really strange though, I'm glad you captured that. I don't think that store will look good at all in Modern decor.
Just to give you a preview of Part II of my blog series on these videos and other resources from the Texas History Database, here's an ad from a Houston-area newspaper in 1978 advertising the electronics for sale at the Safeway Super Store:
https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1075102/m1/26/
And if that isn't good enough for you, here's an ad for clothing at a 1982 Kroger Family Center in the Houston area (the ad continues to the next page which is selectable from within the link): https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1074184/m1/22/
That Kroger is still open, but obviously it's no Fred Meyer/Marketplace type store in modern times. It looks quite strange, but it looks like maybe it got some new decor here recently to replace the Script decor:
https://goo.gl/maps/WJcGamTFu5wrmzK29
Oh, and finally, here's a newspaper article from this week about the grand opening of a new Albertsons store in El Paso, TX. Is it just me or does this new Albertsons have Lifestyle v3 decor?! Link: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2021/04/02/albertsons-opening-eighth-el-paso-store-location-zaragoza-east-side/4840011001/
Yeah, that's certainly true in Seattle (and probably in Queen Anne too to an extent, at least compared to similarly wealthy areas elsewhere). I suspect it's due to the generally high cost of living (if you're spending a huge portion of your income on housing, you don't have a lot left to buy new cars frequently). Personally, I credit going car free as a big part of the reason I was able to afford to buy a place already!
DeleteYeah, that was certainly a weird store. Sadly (?), we won't get to see it with Modern decor, since it closed a few years back. It was built in the 70s (quite likely not as a Safeway), but the exterior design (and probably some of the interior too) dates to the late 80s.
Ha, that Kroger Family Center may not compare to today's Kroger Marketplaces, but it still has Marketplace (Banner) decor!
Yep, that's definitely Lifestyle v3! I don't know what the strangest part is -- Lifestyle v3 still in use in 2021 (at least in its original form -- the Oregon division has been experimenting with different, generally uglier, versions), a new Albertsons-branded store opening in 2021, or an Albertsons-branded stlre with Lifestyle v3! Admittedly, that's from a Washington perspective, where both Lifestyle v3 and the Albertsons brand are being phased out, but still...
Huh, you're right, that Kroger Family Center store does have Marketplace decor! You know, I didn't even notice that at first in the photos. I saw those small, low-hanging aisle markers and it never even crossed my mind that those might be Marketplace decor. After seeing the walls, yes, it is some very odd variation of Marketplace decor. That might be the oddest application of Marketplace decor I've seen especially with the Millennium style (I think) flooring and the low ceilings, but in some ways it's fitting given the store's history as a Kroger Family Center. If Retail Retell hasn't seen the photos of this store, he'll really want to check it out because I'm sure it would rank highly on the hypothetical Kroger decor weirdness scale, lol.
DeleteThat's too bad about the East Puyallup Safeway closing. Maybe Safeway did us a favor by closing it instead of forcing a very unnatural Modern decor remodel on it, but it's always unfortunate to see an oddball store like that close.
West Texas is kind of a different world from the rest of Texas probably not unlike the Seattle area and Eastern Washington. El Paos is a bit of a bizarro-land where Albertsons is still very popular. Even with that, it seems Albertsons had not opened a new store in El Paso in 20 years so this is pretty big news for them. I suppose it wouldn't have made sense for them to open a Safeway in a city where the Albertsons name was well-established and popular, but they pretty much gave them a Safeway in everything but name! It's a Lifestyle v3 store at that and not a Modern decor store which is interesting. The newer Randall's and Tom Thumbs on this side of Texas do have Modern decor, of course, but those are run by a different division than the El Paso stores.
It would be nice in a way to not have to worry about having a car, but that's simply not much of an option for most people in Houston. It's certainly not an option for me given that I have quite a long commute to/from work. Oh well, at least you seem to have found a perfect spot. I had a relative who lived in Seattle decades ago and he drove a Renault Le Car! I think that counts as a very Seattle-type car, lol.
Yep, that certainly is a bit of an odd one! I've seen those low-clearance Marketplace aisle markers before, but they can't be particularly common since it seems like Kroger tends to save Marketplace for newer, high-ceiling stores for the most part.
DeleteYeah, I know a lot of areas are still using the Albertsons name -- as far as I know, it's just the Washington division that's phasing it out. It still feels a little odd to me, though!
Yep, that's certainly true for most of the country at this point. It's very much the case for Port Angeles, where I grew up. But in Seattle, I've been able to do a lot without a car (only one or two of the Seattle-area stores featured here are ones I drove to, since I do occasionally borrow my parents car, though almost all of the ones outside of the Seattle area are ones I drove to so that I could visit more stores on a tight timeline on vacations). And ha, a Le Car certainly does look like a nice city car -- though I'd be a little concerned to drive it on some of our hills!
Nice view you got there! (And congrats on buying your own place!) I think you covered most of the Seattle area's famous landmarks from that vantage point, although the Space Needle is quite prominent from where you are. I know you said you were cramped in your old place, so hopefully your new condo is much nicer and more spacious for you! Maybe now you can make the space for a retail memorabilia room :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah, it really is most of the city -- in fact, it's about the same view as on the Fry's category signage I showed last week.
DeleteWhile my new condo is a lot nicer than my Northgate apartment, it's actually a good bit smaller (though it's still about twice the size of the Fremont apartment I lived in until last year) -- I've filled up practically the whole place, so no space for retail memorabilia here! 🙂
I echo the comments above, congrats on the move and on having your own place! And ooh, I like AFB's idea of a retail memorabilia room, that would be awesome :P
ReplyDeleteI read through your comment stream with Anonymous this morning, and didn't have time then to really go through and reply, but I was able to finally dig up some links that hopefully are relevant...
First -- as to the greenhouse Safeway -- I'm still pretty certain that it was a Kroger at first. Like I told Anonymous in a comment at my blog, I know for a fact there is a newspaper ad out there somewhere promoting Kroger's new "Superstore 2" store build, aka the greenhouse -- and it featured an early greenhouse design that looked pretty similar to the Safeway in that video. Unfortunately, though, obviously since I'm looking for it the internet has decided to hide it from me. Thankfully, however, I was instead able to come across at least two pics showing former Kroger stores with an identical exterior design:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/joearchitect/5930853680
https://www.flickr.com/photos/busman_49/41523447590/
That first link in particular has a lot of relevant details in the comments. The second photo shows that columns were added to the front, so it's not that totally free-floating/cutaway design, but at least the curvature of the façade on either side of the greenhouse windows is still present -- perhaps the columns were added later, or perhaps this was the first push to adding columns as a permanent feature, since we of course know that they did wind up being an important element of the "finalized" greenhouse designs (as well as a straightening-out of the curve). Either way, the curved ones were definitely an early greenhouse design, and that Safeway definitely looks like it fits the bill. That still doesn't answer the question of why Kroger would've moved out of that building so quickly, but I can only do so much!
And finally, as for the Marketplace/Banner décor in that former Family Center location -- yeah, definitely not my favorite in that application, but also far from the first time I've seen that package in a store with some funky walls and a lower drop ceiling like that. The Trinity Commons location in Cordova, TN, feels just as uncomfortable with that décor. And a lot of the stores in the Jackson metro in Mississippi were also retrofitted with Banner, which doesn't look particularly great in many of them. That décor truly does look best in very large stores with very high, open ceilings (in my opinion).
Thanks!
DeleteHuh, I really didn't realize Kroger's first greenhouses looked like that! I like that design (particularly the one shown in the Safeway) more than the typical design, honestly. As to why Kroger would close the store so soon, who knows, but it's not unheard-of. Safeway bought this storefrom QFC just 2 years after it was built, and this one from Fred Meyer just a few years after it opened.
Yeah, I'm not sure why Kroger decided to expand Banner to those low-ceiling stores! They never look particularly good. At least QFC never adopted Banner!
Thanks for the information, Retail Retell. I will say that my former local Kroger is an example of a short-lived Greenhouse location. It opened in ~1978 in a location squeezed between a Kmart and a Weiner's clothing store. All of these were built new in 1978. By 1984-86, the store closed and another Greenhouse store just down the road a bit more or less replaced it. That replacement store itself closed and was replaced with a Kroger Signature store on a neighboring lot.
DeleteHere's an image of the closed 1978 Greenhouse Kroger from a similar angle as the video was taken at that Greenhouse Safeway. The large 'bookend' wall looks similar in both locations along with some other aspects. Link: https://goo.gl/maps/V5sogPj9jRm35YDf9
If I had to guess, I would tend to agree with Retail Retell that the Safeway was probably a Kroger. It's hard to say though and it's impossible to guess why Kroger left that location. One has to wonder if it was one of the stores Kroger purchased from Safeway when Safeway left Dallas in 1987! Here in Houston, we're more used to Krogers being in old Safeways rather than vice versa, but maybe Dallas was a bit different.
I suppose that low ceiling and Marketplace look isn't that unusual then. Really, the Marketplace/Banner decor has not been used much in Houston except at actual Marketplace stores. The one exception I can think of is at an early 2000s Kroger Signature store that has a drop ceiling, but a very high one. I think the Marketplace decor really looks good at this Kroger. I've never seen it look better in fact. It should be noted that this is a very high income area Kroger and it has stiff competition from the neighboring HEB so Kroger probably puts more effort into this store than most of their other Houston stores: https://goo.gl/maps/vYGuxjAC9q9dvrk27
The problem with that old Kroger Family Center is that I'm not sure if any current Kroger decor package would look good in it. Some of NW Retail's QFC photos show that low ceilings and new decor can work, but even the Script logo looked awkward at that Family Center store and that's not a decor package that looks awkward easily! Even most Greenhouse stores have taller ceilings than that Family Center.
If I had to guess, I think maybe that Kroger Family Center would look best with miniaturized 2012 decor, but I don't know. I hope Kroger doesn't replace that store though, that's a great piece of history. There probably aren't too many Krogers out there with a Kmart-like interior and Kmart-like history!
I'd say there's a good chance that Urban Mix would look pretty good in that store. After all, that store has higher ceilings than most QFCs (sadly enough), and Urban Mix looks quite nice there!
DeleteAs an aside, if you sent me those pictures of that Kroger, I'd totally think it was a Fred Meyer! It's not just the Banner decor -- those multi-tiered ceilings look like some 80s Fred Meyers, and the partial upstairs with the cafe seating area is something I've definitely seen in Fred Meyers before.
Perhaps the Kroger there took inspiration from Fred Meyer. It is possible since it is a high-income area store and perhaps Kroger wanted to give it a different look than all their other regular Houston Kroger stores. It's a very nice looking store.
DeleteAs for Urban Mix, I don't think any stores in Houston have it yet. If they do, I have not seen it. For as many stores as Kroger has here, they aren't one to experiment much with their newest decor packages here. Then again, the old Family Center store perhaps should have gotten an oddball interior since the use of the Marketplace/Banner decor here is unusual itself outside of the Marketplace stores and that high-income area Kroger mentioned earlier.
Yeah, Kroger seems to be very slow in rolling out Urban Mix. That's too bad, since it's my favorite of the (way too many!) decor packages they're currently using!
DeleteYou're welcome! And yeah, Anonymous, that 1978 store does look to be of the same design.
DeleteCongrats on the move!
ReplyDelete