Former Albertsons #2701 - College Station, TX (Old Post)

January 2011. The Albertsons had been closed for about 13 years by this point.
#2701
301 South College Avenue
College Station, TX
Opened: 1971 (as Skaggs-Albertsons), 1992 (as Albertsons)
Closed: 1997
Demolished: 2012-2013

This post was originally based on "Skaggs Albertsons / Skaggs Alpha Beta / Jewel-Osco / Albertsons" from Brazos Buildings & Businesses

One of the more interesting partnerships in supermarket history, Skaggs Drug Centers ran a highly successful group of drug stores. It was only natural that they would team up with a respected (but regional) name to create a chain of large food and drug combos when such a thing was more of a novelty than something expected, and Skaggs Albertsons was born.

Courtesy John Ellisor

Located just north of the Texas A&M University campus, Skaggs Albertsons ran a successful store from opening in 1971 on.

Wikipedia says that the partnership dissolved in 1977, but this store (and likely the others in Texas and Florida) did become Skaggs Alpha Beta in 1979 (as the parent company, Skaggs Companies, bought American Stores, and took their name). It went straight from Skaggs Albertsons to Skaggs Alpha Beta, which I can dig up the microfilm to prove. This changeover happened in November 1979.

In 1991, American Stores Inc. rebranded their remaining Alpha Beta stores in the South as Jewel-Osco (a brand bought in 1984), which was strange since the rest of the Jewel-Osco stores were states away. This set-up didn't last too long, and in 1992, they sold the stores to Albertson's Inc., which would reopen the stores as Albertsons.

Albertsons had a location in College Station opened just a year prior several miles away, but College Station's second Albertsons didn't last long (why it had 2701 even though it opened after 1991 is a mystery to me...perhaps the original 2701 was cancelled, or it was renumbered?). Despite being a 24 hour location and working off a huge base of college students, in November 1997, this store closed and would be replaced by a new store in a former Randall's, and the store was left to ruin. It wasn't until 2012 until demolition began and today, the building's footprint (as well as some adjacent store spaces) is greenspace for a nearby apartment complex.

In that time, Albertsons had grown even more (if briefly), before selling itself off in 2006, dashing the last of the Skaggs legacy by disposing of its drug store chains, pulling out of numerous markets, and getting to close to buying back the stores it sold off to SuperValu.

This concludes the Albertsons in the Bryan/College Station area. There's still Safeway to go but while I still plan on featuring a very old Safeway in less than a few weeks, I'm holding off on any further old Safeway stores until the merger closes, and enough to feature more Albertsons.

The Brazos Buildings & Businesses link (and link back to the main University Square article) has more info on the stores surrounding it and even a few shots (collected) of demolition, as well as further shots poking around the exterior (like the signage where it explains that the pharmacy records have been moved to their original College Station store, and not the store it quickly reopened as a replacement (the old Randalls).


What was left of Albertsons after the first major demo. For a time you could see where a second-level office mezzanine was.


The first Christmas at the store.


Albertsons interior. This looks like the "Blue & Gray Interior" (Official Stalworth Picture)


From The Eagle, shortly after the demo began.