Groceteria.com

Found This on Google News Archives of The
Ellensburg Daily Record, I lived in Eburg for
a couple years in the late 90's and the marina
was torn down in 1999 for a new store

The store it replaced (which was only built six years before), still stands at 411 N. Ruby St. It is now the Kittitas County Permit Center.

Pretty interesting to see a marina replace a gable (if that's what I'm seeing) - how often did same-generation Saefway buildings replace each other?

TheStranger wrote:Pretty interesting to see a marina replace a gable (if that's what I'm seeing) - how often did same-generation Saefway buildings replace each other?

It was not uncommon in the 1960s. Often, they would build a new store in the parking lot of the old and then tear down the older one once the replacement opened.

I'd like to know why they replace a store that was only six years old (!).

Did this ever happen in Portland, OR and its neighboring suburban cities?

~Ben

Many "outmoded" stores (to use the official Safeway terminology of the era) were replaced in a relatively short period of time. I think the primary reason is a major increase in the number of products and product lines stocked during the 1960s, which required more square footage to keep pace. I think Safeway (and other chains) were also gaining a lot of customer traffic that had previously gone to a dwindling number of independent grocers, necessitating more checkstands and somewhat wider aisles. Building a 20,000-square-foot store would have set them even farther ahead of the pack, especially in a small city like Ellensburg.

As for why they built across the street from, instead of adjacent to, the 1959 store -- I suspect that the parcels were simply easier to purchase. I'd be curious to know how that old store spent most of its life prior to becoming the permit office, which apparently happened in the past ten years. I can't imagine Safeway allowing a competing grocer to operate there when they either owned the building or held a long-term lease.

Just looking through the headline database of the East Side Journal (Kirkland's former newspaper,) it seemed that every 7-10 years Safeway was moving to a new location there. Eventually they settled down into their current mid-Nineties freestanding location and have stayed there since then.

Brian Lutz wrote:Just looking through the headline database of the East Side Journal (Kirkland's former newspaper,) it seemed that every 7-10 years Safeway was moving to a new location there. Eventually they settled down into their current mid-Nineties freestanding location and have stayed there since then.

Something tells me, I wonder if their '70s location was one of the earliest Super Stores ... ?

~Ben

I have seen ads for Safeway Super Stores in some of the early 80s papers (1982-1983 or so) but I can't be sure that particular store was one of them. I do know the Redmond/Overlake store was a superstore, and I believe there were a couple others. I'm guessing that the Marina Safeway that used to be in downtown Kirkland (now demolished) was the predecessor to the current (built in the early 90s, was there when I moved up here in '94) Rose Hill store.

An interesting side note is that this former Safeway was across the street from a Marina style Albertsons built around the same time. That store eventually got converted into what now serves as the headquarters of Bungie Software. Bungie is planning to move again shortly though, into a larger space in downtown Bellevue formerly occupied by a movie theater and a short-lived video arcade.