This store has a bit of an interesting history. It was obviously built in the Marina era, and
remained seemingly untouched on the outside all the way up until the Safeway-Albertsons merger. At that point, it was one of the few Safeways
traded to Haggen, in favor of a much larger and somewhat more modern Albertsons on the outskirts of town (as an aside, that has to be one of the most pathetic Haggen conversions, at least on the outside!), which was a complete flop (like the entire Haggen expansion). Interestingly, this wasn't one of the stores that Safeway took back right away and gave a cheap Lifestyle v3 remodel; instead, it seems to have sat empty at first, before getting a much more comprehensive remodel than any other re-conversion I've seen.
I'm pretty excited to see this one! When we went on our Oregon-California trip last year, we originally planned on staying in Medford or Ashland for a night or two before we realized it made a lot more sense to return through Bend rather than Medford/Ashland. I certainly don't regret that decision, Bend was terrific. Some of the hotels I was looking at in Ashland, when that was the original plan, were located near the Albertsons, but I did know about this Marina Safeway and was interested in visiting it. Unfortunately, I think it's a lot nicer on the outside than inside, but I'm sure we'll see that in your photos.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you had made it here on one of your Oregon trips! It's too bad you didn't, though I don't think you would have liked this store as much as I did.
Delete