This Albertsons opened in 2002 at one of the weird times of Albertsons history, wherein the Houston stores were collapsing and yet this store opened, a shining specimen in an "urban renewal" project that brought the moribund 1958 Townshire Shopping Center back to life. It also included a gas station under the name Albertsons Express.
Let me tell you that the Houston division, and we'll explore this later with some notoriously bad stores, weren't the best at choosing locations. I'm sure that the Albertsons here was probably coaxed in with some city TIF funds, which probably kept it alive as it did. The Albertsons physically replaced (rebuilt) an old Sears store, which was was never very big and had been a variety of other uses since Sears moved to Post Oak Mall in 1982. The last use were college classes which took off circa 1998 when a new campus was built.
Now, Townshire did have a Safeway (read more about that on the original post), but this post is about the Albertsons that later inhabited it. In 2002, the grocery market in Bryan wasn't like it is today. During the time, Albertsons was competing with a 1970s-era Kroger and a 1990s-era H-E-B Pantry, and it was bigger than H-E-B and newer than Kroger, so it had advantages. Additionally, the AppleTree was located a few miles down the road as well. Either way, it probably was one of the biggest and certainly the nicest supermarkets in Bryan for a while. So what happened?
Well, within a few years, the H-E-B moved to a larger store a few blocks down at the redeveloped Manor East Mall site (now Tejas Center), and the problems at Albertsons corporate didn't help matters much either. It was the first on the chopping block post-breakup in 2006 and was shuttered along with much of the Central Texas stores at the time. Based on the short life and the local sentiment, the store likely lost money hand over fist, which is big compared to the other two then-living Albertsons in town still doing business, plus the two AppleTrees in town (a Safeway legacy) were doing fine too. Part of the other huge problem was the demographics were all wrong--there were decades-old apartment buildings just next to it, run-down motels across the street, and the grocery store was more expensive then the ones around it.
And so went the Bryan Albertsons and what Acme Style dubs the "Theme Park" décor (also, "Grocery Palace", as it's known). In 2012 or so, the Albertsons gas station reopened as a generic "Tigerland Express" (not Exxon, nor did it keep any of the "Express" signage), and in the summer of 2013, a new Walmart grocery store finally opened after several years of rumors (not to mention the complete exodus of Albertsons from the market altogether, by this time).
Walmart gutted the store but didn't actually alter the facade too much besides a partial repaint (honestly, I think it looks much better that way, sans Walmart branding). Here's my picture of the Walmart Neighborhood Market. You could see the façade incorporates much of the old Albertsons facade, though they painted parts brown (as opposed to the original tan-red color and blue for the decorative arch). Walmart does have a separate door for liquor sales; unfortunately, I don't believe there was one for Albertsons.
The source photo above, as well as shots of the interior with the "Theme Park" décor can be found here, mirrored from its original source. The newsletter certainly is interesting, as within five years, all the major grocery stores but one (and that last one has since been torn down and replaced) has either changed its name, moved, or gone out of business.
In a surprising turn of events, it turned out that even Walmart couldn't hack it, and the store ended up on the January 2016 closing list of stores, causing the store to be vacant once more. The only remnant is the former Albertsons Express/Tigerland Express. Someone I knew was telling me how sketchy the "Tigerland Express" gas station was, and was surprised to learn that even an Albertsons existed in that spot. Clearly, this was a terrible location for any grocery store.
This post was originally based on "Townshire Shopping Center" from Brazos Buildings & Businesses
This was Albertsons #2796. Also interesting to see this store had a drop ceiling and not a warehouse ceiling like most Albertsons stores built during this time.
ReplyDeleteIt's also clearly not a FULL "Theme Park" store, either, as the "Meal Center" sign is cheap and not with the little chef figure like the Acme Style post shows it as. Thanks for the store number, though! It will be added.
ReplyDeleteThe reason this store probably wasn't a full 'Theme Park' store was because it had a drop ceiling. Because most of the signs and spinning props (like the original Meal Center sign) were so large in this interior package, they would have hung to low to the floor since the ceiling height was much lower than in a store with a warehouse style ceiling. Because of this limitation the signage was kept to a minimum in these stores, creating a cheaper, more bare bones version of this interior. I've seen this a few times with older stores remodeled to this look. On a side note, the Theme Park interior made its debut in 1999 at one of the Texas stores, however I've never been able to find out which one.
ReplyDelete