2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

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Ephrata1966
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by Ephrata1966 »

This might not really count as "supermarkets" but it's pretty remarkable: Newtown Square Shopping Center in Newtown Square, PA has not one but two Wine & Spirits stores (popularly known as state stores) in it today. One is inside the Acme in the center but the other is behind the Hallmark store at the opposite end of the center. The store inside Acme takes up a space (not sure what type of merchandise Acme used it for originally) that was originally carved up to be a winery-owned store. Not sure which winery this was but the winery ran into financial trouble and cancelled the opening of the store.

Of course Acme must have not been very happy about this (they gave up a huge chunk of their store in the hopes of adding an extra traffic generator) so the state decided to put a "one-stop shop" liquor store in the space. These "one-stop shops" opened in about a dozen supermarkets in Pennsylvania during the 2003-2007 era (this one opened in early 2006) but this one was unique because the much older (opened around 1978) Wine & Spirits store in the center was kept open to coexist with the new store. There were multiple cases of freestanding Wine & Spirits stores being relocated to inside supermarkets, but in this case I guess the state decided to experiment with both store types because the store inside Acme was smaller than the store it otherwise would be replacing.

There's a really ironic twist to this story: the older Wine & Spirits in the center was a relocation of a state store (as it was then officially known) next to the Acme (which first opened around 1959) that relocated because Acme asked it and other businesses to move so the Acme could be expanded. The Acme was expanded and remodeled again in 1999 and has gotten at least one new decor package since then.

Complicating everything even more is that in 1995, a shopping center at the other end of Newtown Square anchored by Genuardi's, Happy Harry's (drugstore), and Wine & Spirits was built. Around 2006 the Happy Harry's closed and so did an EB Games a few spots down from it. Staples snapped up the Happy Harry's space but also asked the Wine & Spirits to move to the old EB Games spot to make for a larger Staples. Fairly recently though the Staples closed anyway. Surprisingly the Genuardi's in the center was never remodeled between 1995 and its closure in 2010 (two years before the Genuardi's chain was dissolved) and even more strangely, Giant opened in the space in 2013, over a year after they bought about a dozen former Genuardi's at the same time. That batch of stores only spent about a week between Genuardi's closing and Giant opening, but this Newtown Square store sat empty for three years in between the two!
Ephrata1966
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by Ephrata1966 »

It's finally happening (sometime this year): the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board is opening one new store to replace those two Wine & Spirits stores. The new store will be in a new Whole Foods-anchored center across the street. It will be hard finding new tenants for both old stores. And unfortunately, the center already has two major vacancies... a Rite Aid which has been empty several years and a McDonald's that closed really abruptly last year. And it wouldn't surprise me if both the Acme and True Value closed in the next few years.
Ephrata1966
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by Ephrata1966 »

Groceteria wrote:I believe the fully built-out version of City Line Center in Philadelphia (now called City Avenue) had both an Acme and a Penn Fruit. The center opened with and Acme where the Dollar Tree is now located. I have a feeling it eventually relocated to the current Sears Hardware space, but I'm not sure. Next door is a Ross which was pretty obviously a Penn Fruit to start.
Actually the Sears Hardware was never an Acme. I have no idea what it used to be though. Acme moved to the former Penn Fruit in 1979 (and the original Acme in the center soon became a Thrift Drug, then Eckerd which closed a few years before Rite Aid bought the chain, finally ending up as a Dollar Tree). Meanwhile, the Acme in the former Penn Fruit building closed in 2002. Ross opened soon after. While this Acme didn't have a direct replacement, the nearby Acme in Narberth did a major expansion/remodeling soon after the City Avenue store closed. Also, a new Acme had opened in nearby Bala Cynwyd in 2000, as a relocation of an Acme that was a former Food Fair/Pantry Pride. And the Acme in nearby Upper Darby is an oldie (first opened in 1963) but had expansions done in both the 70's and the 90's, as well as at least one remodel in the 2000s. More recently, in 2015, Acme bought the former Super Fresh (in a former Centennial A&P building that has barely changed over the years except for the facade on the outside and the decor on the inside) in nearby Wynnewood.

Somewhat ironically, the Sears Hardware has closed sometime since 2010, and has been recently split into a Dollar Tree/Family Dollar combination store (possibly the only one in existence?) which means the Dollar Tree in the ex-Acme building has closed. I saw construction being done to the former Dollar Tree today but I have no idea what the new tenant(s) will be. There's a really small, old and outdated ShopRite about a mile north of this shopping center that I get the feeling will be either closed or relocated in the next few years. I get the feeling this store is where a lot of Acme customers started shopping once the Acme closed.

Also, there's a very old Rite Aid in a former 40's/early 50's A&P building only about two blocks north of the former Acme/Thrift Drug/Eckerd/Dollar Tree. I wonder what Rite Aid would have done if the Eckerd had stayed open up to when they bought the chain. Since this is a very densely populated urban area, I get the feeling they would have rebranded the Eckerd but also would have kept the other store open. They probably would have at least thought about opening one new store with a drive-thru pharmacy to replace both of these at some point though. Oddly enough, CVS has a relatively modern store (which opened while the Eckerd was still open a stone's throw away) on the block between the Rite Aid site and the ex-Eckerd site. And I don't think it was a replacement for an older CVS. It's strange that neither Eckerd nor Rite Aid relocated to this site when they had the chance. I think I read that there once was a Howard Johnson's restaurant on this site but I could be wrong.
klkla
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by klkla »

In Westlake Village California, which is a master planned community, there are three supermarkets operating in what could be considered one shopping center. It's technically three different centers by name but all are on the same block and the centers are owned by and were developed by the same company.

There's a Vons, Gelson's and Sprouts (which was originally a Safeway).

You can see it in the overhead view on google:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Westl ... 18.8073729
Ephrata1966
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by Ephrata1966 »

West Shore Plaza in Lemoyne, PA (very close to Harrisburg) opened in 1955 with both Acme and Food Fair. The former Acme eventually became a CVS (I think IGA might have been here for awhile after Acme closed, but I'm not sure) and the Food Fair (which I assume survived the change to Pantry Pride, but I'm not sure) became a Karns supermarket, part of a small local chain. In recent years, Karns relocated to a new store across the street, and the former Karns became a Goodwill.

The only other Karns that I know of (I know the chain has a few other locations, but I can't name them) is a former Acme in Hershey. Amazingly, even though Acme closed the store way back in 1982, it still has its basic "colonial cottage" facade visible, but modifications have definitely been made. And the interior has absolutely been wiped clean of any Acme features. It seems like at least one expansion has been made by Karns over the decades. There's a state liquor store (Wine & Spirits store) attached along the front wall that can only be entered/exited by customers passing through Karns.

The former A&P (now "Cocoaplex Cinema") and former Giant (now Staples) in Hershey also are both clearly identifiable as their former tenants, despite major renovations. It's common for Centennial A&P buildings to have their basic features preserved by new tenants (as I'm sure all of you already know), but I'm particularly surprised that Staples didn't make the effort to remove all traces of Giant. Not only is the facade and brickwork obviously left behind from Giant, there also is at least one obvious former Giant street sign being reused by Staples in the parking lot.
Ephrata1966
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by Ephrata1966 »

Groceteria wrote:I believe the fully built-out version of City Line Center in Philadelphia (now called City Avenue) had both an Acme and a Penn Fruit. The center opened with and Acme where the Dollar Tree is now located. I have a feeling it eventually relocated to the current Sears Hardware space, but I'm not sure. Next door is a Ross which was pretty obviously a Penn Fruit to start.
Acme actually relocated to the Penn Fruit space. In turn, this was one of the many Acme stores closed during the "bloodbath" that started around 2000 as soon as Albertsons first started to make changes to the Acme chain. What later was Sears Hardware (which closed in the years since the post I'm quoting, and recently became a strange Dollar Tree/Family Dollar combination store) was a Channel hardware store at one point. I'm assuming Channel wasn't the original tenant (Channel didn't enter the Philly area until the early-mid 70's, but the shopping center dates back to the late 1940s) but have no idea what the original tenant would have been. I'm suspecting it was something along the lines of Woolworth, Grants, Kresge/Jupiter, TG&Y, etc.

Woolworth definitely had a store a few miles down the street at the Bala Cynwyd Shopping Center. It opened in 1955 and lasted until at least 1990, but I'm not sure if it survived until 1997 or not. Its replacement tenant was unique: it was a Foot Locker "superstore" (remember, Foot Locker was started by Woolworth, but I'm sure relatively few people remember that) that was about 12,000 square feet... WAY larger than the "normal" Foot Locker store size that typical mall Foot Locker stores would be. I have to wonder if it was the only Foot Locker like this to ever have existed. But the concept must have been a massive failure. Foot Locker closed this store (which today is a Michaels, but ironically is very small and cramped for a Michaels) but replaced it with a standard-size Foot Locker store a few spots down in the shopping center, where a Hallmark store once was.

Similarly, there was an unusually large EB Games store at Marville Shopping Center in Newtown Square, PA (about ten miles west of Bala Cynwyd) but it closed as soon as GameStop bought the chain. GameStop didn't open a smaller replacement store, but there are several GameStop stores within reasonable proximity of here. Its closing was convenient because the space almost immediately became a PA Wine & Spirits store, which replaced a Wine & Spirits store a few spots down that was evicted from its space because Staples took over the former Happy Harry's drugstore next door (similarly to the GameStop/EB Games situation, the Happy Harry's closed as soon as Walgreens bought the chain) but needed a bit more space. Ironically, the Staples ended up closing in 2014 anyway, and sits vacant to this day. Also ironically, the new Wine & Spirits store in the ex-EB Games spot wasn't any bigger than the Wine & Spirits store it replaced (in fact, the new store might be smaller) even though it opened around the same time that a lot of PA Wine & Spirits stores were either expanding or relocating to larger spaces.
TenPoundHammer
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by TenPoundHammer »

When Eastland Mall (now Courtland Center) in Flint, MI opened, its front entry had a Kroger on one side and A&P on the other. Both stores were gone by the late 70s or so. The Kroger became a Duff's Smorgasbord (now Old Country Buffet), and the A&P was later a Jo-Ann Fabrics for a long time, and is now a party supply store.

Middletown Mall in Fairmont, WV has Save-a-Lot and Shop & Save (the independent PA-based chain, not the SuperValu subsidiary). In fact, as of a couple years ago, they're right next to each other!
mburb1981
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by mburb1981 »

I know, two-year bump, but for a good reason. Just a few minutes ago I stumbled upon a Facebook group post displaying this article from the September 16, 1959 Dearborn (Michigan) Press, concerning the groundbreaking of the Taylortown Shopping Center:
70891708_10120270951891804_2554709056614825984_n.jpg
Taylortown Shopping Center is located at Ecorse and Pardee Roads in what was at the time unincorporated Taylor Township, Michigan, which incorporated as the city of Taylor in 1968. This article mentions that Kroger and A&P were to be among the initial tenants, and thus two-supermarket shopping center.

Kroger was gone by 1984, though A&P held through and was still open by 1983, and later became Aco Hardware after A&P closed this store in favor of the Farmer Jack that had been built nearby on the site of the Ecorse Drive-In Theater, and eventually Great Lakes Ace Hardware. The opening of a modern Kroger store across Ecorse Road and the expansion of the nearby Walmart on Telegraph Road into a Supercenter has all but permanently eliminated any chance of any chain grocer from opening a store in Taylortown in the present day.
NoVa Grocery Buff
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Re: 2 Supermarkets In One Shopping Center

Post by NoVa Grocery Buff »

kg4peq wrote: 04 Jan 2016 20:34 ...

Also, in Charlottesville, Virginia, there is currently a Kroger and a Harris Teeter at opposite ends of the shopping center. I don't spend a whole lot of time in Charlottesville so I don't know how long that's been the case. Seems to me the Kroger may be new. I know the Harris Teeter has been there for a while. It's especially interesting now that Harris Teeter is owned by Kroger.
That Charlottesville Shopping Center (Barracks Road Shopping Center) also has an A&P at one time and possibly another one before the Kroger but the records online are scarce for the time frame but overwise the records are pretty well kept for the shopping center since the Roses-Teeter and Kroger moved in.



Other shopping centers with 2 supermarkets in them I am aware but not on this thread:
VA:
Springfield Plaza (7206 Old Keene Mill Rd, Springfield, VA 22150)
-Giant Food and Trader Joe's. The Giant is moving into a Kmart that just closed that will put it almost directly next to the Trader Joe's.

Chancellor Center (4113-4199 Plank Road (Rt. 3) Fredericksburg, VA 22407)
-Weis Markets (former Food Lion) and Aldi

HI, Oahu:
-Foodland and Don Quijote (Tokyo based Grocery-Discount Retailer)
(850 Kamehameha Hwy, Pearl City, HI 96782)
-Historical Aerials show the Foodland building being present as far back as 1962.
-However, the Foodland just moved in October to a new location after 60 years in the old location.
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/10/ ... -60-years/

NV, Las Vegas:
Rainbow Plaza (861 S Rainbow Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89145)
-Albertsons and Sprouts
-A relatively large shopping center but no indications of their being two supermarkets earlier in its history (1990-present) than when the Sprouts opened within the past year.
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