This building is certainly on the generic side, but this entrance is fairly nice looking, with all of the slanted glass and concrete elements. It's interesting to see that this store still has all of its "open 24 hours" signage on this early 2019 visit, as it's not too long after that that QFC dropped 24-hour service at all of their stores in the Seattle area.
As generic as this might look, it looks very strange for something affiliated with Kroger! Even here in Texas where HEB and Randall's/Tom Thumb occasionally opens stores in non-traditional supermarket spaces, it's uncommon/unheard of to see a Kroger in a non-traditional space. I know that Kroger has been trying to do something like this in Dallas, but they were wanting a subsidy from the city which has been controversial since Albertsons opened a similar Tom Thumb recently nearby without a subsidy. Given some of the labor issues Kroger has been having lately that Albertsons is seemingly not having, I suppose we can add this to the list of things Kroger is doing here lately which is not exactly granting them a lot of goodwill from the public!
ReplyDeleteHere's an article about Kroger catching some heat in Dallas: https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/dallas-tax-break-request-for-new-uptown-kroger-delayed/2765988/
Yeah, I should say, this is generic for a mixed-use/multifamily building, but certainly not for a grocery store! Mixed-use grocery stores like this are somewhat more common around here than in many other areas, since Seattle's insane land values mean that retailers can make serious money by selling/renting out the space above their stores, but Safeway does seem to be much more interested in that than Kroger is -- Kroger has only opened one more store like this in recent years (the brand new Kirkland QFC) and abandoned plans to redevelop two more stores (the Greenwood Fred Meyer and U Village QFC), whereas Safeway has been doing redevelopments like this off and on since the early 00s and currently has one in construction (U District) and three in planning (Upper Queen Anne, Magnolia, and Capitol Hill).
DeleteI hate when companies just expect tax breaks like that. That sort of thing almost never happens around here (unless it's Boeing, infamously), but it seems to be rather common in other parts of the country.