Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

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Super S
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Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

Post by Super S »

In the 80s, Fred Meyer acquired the Grand Central chain. This store was much like a Kmart. I lived in Idaho at the time, and this was the first I heard of Fred Meyer, which not long after opened the first full-scale Fred Meyer in Boise, on Chinden in Garden City.

The two Grand Central stores in Boise did receive some remodeling when Fred Meyer first took over, but both eventually closed when new stores opened nearby. Ironically, both of these stores shared a strip mall with Albertsons, the one on Overland being a former Buttrey that Albertsons took over.

Is Fred Meyer still operating any former Grand Central stores, either without food departments as originally built, or which have had a food department added on?
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Brian Lutz
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Re: Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

Post by Brian Lutz »

I think there might have been a thread on the Southwest board about Grand Central at one point, since that seems to be where most of their stores operated. I know there was one in Santa Fe NM (also in a shopping center with an Albertsons, incidentally) that closed in the mid Eighties and eventually got replaced by a Wal-Mart store, which stayed there for about six or seven years before moving into a new store elsewhere in town. I believe it's a Hobby Lobby now.

As for former non-food Fred Meyer stores, I believe that the old Marketime stores would have fallen into this category. I'm pretty sure none of these are still operating though.
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tesg
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Re: Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

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I'm pretty sure they've wiped them all out. I'm thinking the last of these were wiped out with the Utah conversion to the Smith's Marketplace brand.

The only other one I know of that was still around in recent years was Pocatello, and that store was replaced with a whole new one about five years ago.

Some of the buildings still stand, of course. Some have been empty for years.

The Grand Central thread was on the old board. I doubt there's still a copy of it anywhere (but it'd be nice if there was).
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Re: Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

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Sandy, UT was quite likely the last one.
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Re: Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

Post by marshd1000 »

There is a NON-FOOD Fred Meyer still operating. It is the Greenwood store in Seattle. It is formerly a Leslie's/Valu-Mart store. There have been attmepts to add food at this location. Across the parkling lot is a store called Greenwood Market, which is a former Lucky store. Both stores are on property owned by Greenwood Shopping Center, which is not really promoted as a shopping center nor even looks like one. But Fred Meyer in the past has tried to buy Greenwood Market. I have also heard that Fred Meyer had been thinking of putting groceries in the area underneath that building where they currently have undercover parking. There was one other Fred Meyer in recent years that was a non food store here in the Seattle area. It was the Broadway Fred Meyer. That store eventually had food added to it and esentially is very similar to a Fred Meyer Northwest Best. The Seattle P-I newspaper originally announced that it would be a Fred Meyer expanded to include a food department. I don't know if that was Kroger's original plans. But it ended up being a QFC Marketplace, even though it is not promoted as such!
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Re: Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

Post by justin karimzad »

marshd1000 wrote:There is a NON-FOOD Fred Meyer still operating. It is the Greenwood store in Seattle. It is formerly a Leslie's/Valu-Mart store. There have been attmepts to add food at this location. Across the parkling lot is a store called Greenwood Market, which is a former Lucky store.
I forgot about these, despite visiting them recently. The property assessor lists both of them as having been built in 1965. Thanks for noting the Greenwood market as a former Lucky; it does look like one.
I'm sure you noticed that the Greenwood Fred Meyer already has a basement sales floor with gardenware and housewares merchandise.
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tesg
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Re: Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

Post by tesg »

marshd1000 wrote:There is a NON-FOOD Fred Meyer still operating. It is the Greenwood store in Seattle. It is formerly a Leslie's/Valu-Mart store.
Sure, but it's not a former Grand Central.
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Re: Any NON-FOOD Fred Meyer stores still operating?

Post by kr.abs.swy »

The Idaho Falls Fred Meyer / former Grand Central closed in the late 1990s when a new Fred Meyer was built very close by.

The Pocatello Fred Meyer / former Grand Central closed a few years ago when, again, a new Fred Meyer was built very close by.

Both were in shopping centers with Albertsons stores that have also since closed.

Twin Falls has a Fred Meyer that opened in the late 1990s (before Idaho Falls' new store) but I do not believe that store replaced an existing store.

The Smith's store across from the new Pocatello Fred Meyer closed when the new Fred Meyer opened, leaving Pocatello without a Smith's (suburb Chubbuck still has a smaller, older Smith's store).

None of the Boise former Grand Central stores were still open as Fred Meyer when I moved to Boise in 1999. The store on Fairview was a (B)urlington Coat Factory. The store on Overland did a stint as a furniture store but is currently vacant. Both are in strip malls with Albertsons stores that are still operating.

The Columbia Falls, Montana, Smith's used to be a grocery-only Fred Meyer but was reflagged as Smith's when the two companies joined; last time I was in there (a few years ago) it still had the Fred Meyer interior.
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