Comparing this picture to
a similar view from before the remodel, it's clear just how much Safeway's design philosophy has changed from the Lifestyle v2 era. With its dim lighting and earth tones everywhere, Lifestyle (particularly v2) stores had a very warm, almost home-like feel to them (though modifications over the years degraded that feeling), whereas Modern swings the other way and has a fairly cold and sterile feel. Of course, I feel like that's less about the decor itself (it's not as warm as Lifestyle, but the overall colors are still generally soft earth tones) and more about the choices that Safeway's Seattle division has made following the Albertsons merger (cheap white flooring, cheap harsh lighting, keeping the bright white cases, etc.) and I've seen stores in other divisions that look much better, but it's still quite noticeable. At least this store didn't swap out the beige ceiling tiles for bright white ones like some stores I've seen (yet despite the lighting changes, that one mismatched tile is still there!).
Yeah, this is a bit of a downgrade compared to Lifestyle v2 for this part of the store. Although the white paint and brighter lighting might make this store look bigger than with the Lifestyle v2 design, there are some downgrades here with the clock missing and all that white space above the meat coolers. I don't know if this store would have been old enough to have had a glassed-in view of the butcher tables in the back when it was built, but if so, I guess that has been walled over and replaced with higher, taller meat displays which probably allow for more products to be sold than with the old meat cases.
ReplyDeleteModern here does not look bad, but compared to Lifestyle v2, it does look like a bit of a regression. Oh well, it certainly could have been worse as we've seen with some Kroger remodels, lol.
Any benefits from that of making the stores look larger are more than cancelled out by the Albertsons-era tendency of piling stuff on top of the shelves! 😃
DeleteYeah, Modern is a pretty nice decor; I'm just not a fan of the cheap remodels the Seattle division has been cranking out. The couple new-build Modern stores and the handful of full-fledged remodels (which are mostly Albertsons conversions) look quite nice.
It's quite possible that this area originally had low-profile cases with openings into the prep area! These cases look fairly old, but who knows. Most Lifestyle Safeways have wall tile in the space above the meat cases, but this store just has blank white walls for some reason. Perhaps they thought that continuous wall tile across almost the entire back wall (bakery and meat) would be a bit much! 🙂