Sadly, though not surprisingly, there's nothing of Albertsons left in here. Sprouts clearly cleared this store out to the bare walls and roof, even removing the partial drop ceiling that Albertsons had (and installing a bunch of skylights in its place -- that earns them a lot of points in my book!). Regardless, this is still a pretty interesting store (with some quite nice decor), so we'll be looking around in more detail even if there are no remnants to search for!
I'm glad that our local Sprouts locations, the one linked below being in a former Randall's, looks more like a farmers market and less industrial like the one in the photo!
ReplyDeletehttps://goo.gl/maps/daFTdje8f3xmdwL96
HomeGoods and PetsMart are across the street from the Sprouts. I guess they are never too far away, lol.
Honestly, I generally prefer this look to that one (with a few exceptions, but we'll get to that later). And that's a funny coincidence, though looking at that area, it looks like practically every major national retail chain has a location within a few blocks, haha!
DeleteHa, yeah, just about everyone is there except maybe for Kroger! Kroger had a location until a couple of years ago a tad bit down Highway 6 in what is now the El Rancho, but for some reason they closed that location and made this large and solidly middle class area dependent on an old Greenhouse Kroger further east on Highway 6. That seemed like an odd move, but yeah, El Rancho does have some ownership by Albertsons so I guess Albertsons gained from Kroger leaving.
DeleteThe Food Town across from the Sprouts is a former Albertsons and Food Town still uses Albertsons' old Blue & Grey Market decor. The 24 Hour Fitness across FM 529 has an interesting history. It opened as a Safeway in 1987 I believe, it it opened right before Safeway pulled out of Texas and so it closed about 5-6 months after it opened. Unlike most Safeways in Houston, it didn't become an AppleTree after Safeway left town. In fact, I think Safeway closed the location before the officially left town so it wasn't even around to become an AppleTree. It was a very nice store with Safeway's latest decor, but it was very short-lived. Gerland's Food Fair picked up that location after Safeway dumped it and ran a store there for a while.
The PetsMart/HomeGoods building used to be a Wal-Mart before Wal-Mart moved down FM 529 on the other end of the intersection. It's impossible to tell now that it used to be a Wal-Mart.
The Lowe's and Home Depot next to one another with a connecting driveway between the two is interesting for sure. Also, in the big powercenter with the Food Town and Target, there used to be a Bed, Bath, & Beyond, but it closed in 2019-20. That land was slated to become a mall in the early 1990s, but I guess the developers saw that malls were dying and decided to jump on the powercenter bandwagon instead. It was probably a wise move.
That Target there has to be the busiest Target in my area. That place is always packed unlike any other Target I've been to around here. Even with that, it's one of the less-renovated ones around here. Maybe there's something to be said about that, lol.
Sprouts took over half of a long abandoned Albertsons store in Oviedo (NE suburb of Orlando) a few years back, and did a pretty similar gut and rebuild job of the place too. You can see the before and after images of the transformation in Oviedo here: https://albertsonsfloridablog.blogspot.com/search/label/Albertsons%20%234412
ReplyDeleteAs far as organic stores go, Sprouts reminds me a lot of what Lucky's Market was like - a less-pretentious organic store that felt much more welcoming to people who weren't into the organic thing. I actually liked Lucky's for that reason, and I got the same vibe from Sprouts the few times I've been in one. If I had a Sprouts closer to me, I'd probably pop in from time to time, as they appear to run good produce specials from what I've seen.
We don't have a ton of different organic supermarkets in Houston as the likes of The Fresh Market have failed here, but of the ones we have here (Sprouts and Whole Foods mostly), Sprouts is my preferred option. While they seem to appeal to the organic audience, they actually have regular produce as well and they often have good sales on the regular produce.
DeleteSprouts probably wouldn't be a good place to do all of one's shopping at, but it's good for produce if nothing else. Granted, I like the way our older Sprouts stores look than the newer ones like this Seattle one and the one in AFB's link.
Yep, I should have mentioned that store -- I remember seeing that post and thinking that it looks nearly identical to this place!
DeleteI agree with what both of you said -- if I had a Sprouts in my neighborhood, I'm sure I would end up shopping there for at least some things, especially since produce at Safeway has really gone downhill over the past few years.
For being a brand new store, I'm surprised this location still has the old logo so prominent throughout. Sprouts actually debuted a new logo in late 2020: https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/retailers/sprouts-grows-new-brand-identity
ReplyDeleteI completely forgot about that! This store must have been designed right before the new logo came out.
Delete