Safeway Converted Pylon Stores in California

Uh...California.

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greebs
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Safeway Converted Pylon Stores in California

Post by greebs »

Why is the San Francisco Safeway store the prototype of the Marina store when it opened in 1959, yet the Safeway in Highland Park opened in June of 1955 and has the same design? It is located at 5610 York Blvd in Highland Park, Calif.
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Post by TheStranger »

greebs wrote:Why is the San Francisco Safeway store the prototype of the Marina store when it opened in 1959, yet the Safeway in Highland Park opened in June of 1955 and has the same design? It is located at 5610 York Blvd in Highland Park, Calif.
Some stores (most notably the flagship Market Street store in San Francisco) were converted from the mid-1950s pylon/box architecture to the marina shape, and this may have been an example (unless it did open as a marina, which would be surprising).
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Post by greebs »

Here is a quote from the Los Angeles Times dated June 15, 1955

"The market representing an investment of $500,000 in land, building, stock and fixtures is one of the largest in the chain, and the first of it's type to be built in Highland Park by Safeway Stores Inc."

I am curious to know if this store was remodeled to a Marina style store later on, what would have been the reason?
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greebs wrote: I am curious to know if this store was remodeled to a Marina style store later on, what would have been the reason?
I can't say for sure, but with the Market Street store I speculate it was specifically a move to get the store to be up-to-date with the most recent prototype.

In the Northwest Safeway thread, someone mentioned a Portland? area (Milwaukie?) store that got the pylon-to-Marina remodel, but which was demolished a few years ago.
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Post by Groceteria »

greebs wrote:I am curious to know if this store was remodeled to a Marina style store later on, what would have been the reason?
Pretty much for the same reasons they continue doing so today: increased square footage, better layout, and updated appearance.

Most older Safeway stores that are still open have been remodeled so many times that they bear little resemblance to their original appearance. In fact, there are lots of old pylon-type stores still operating, although most look radically different now. Specifically, the SF Market Street store was updated in conjunction with the addition of a Super S drug store in about 1965.
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Post by TheStranger »

Groceteria wrote: In fact, there are lots of old pylon-type stores still operating, although most look radically different now.
Are there any stores with the pylon architecture still operating as Safeway (not counting Market Street)?
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Post by klkla »

greebs wrote:Why is the San Francisco Safeway store the prototype of the Marina store when it opened in 1959, yet the Safeway in Highland Park opened in June of 1955 and has the same design? It is located at 5610 York Blvd in Highland Park, Calif.
When I worked in the Safeway Southern California division from 1984 to 1988 I had never heard the term "Marina'. That seemed to be a Northern California division term. In Southern California it was called the 'Malibu Roof' formally and the 'Pirate's Hat' informally. It's possible that the Marina store wasn't the first but because it was such a big success (the number one store in the entire company when I worked for them) that it just became synonymous with the design.
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Post by justin karimzad »

I can speak for 1959 Safeways. I do know that there was a Safeway in the Hacienda Gardens Shopping Center in San Jose, CA (rebuilt as Lucky in the 1980s) that opened in January 1959, and had an arched roof. It looked a lot like the 7th ave. San Francisco Safeway, which I'm venturing to guess was also pre-June 1959 flagship Marina. The flagship marina has stone-faced concrete walls, (which seem to have been used in Marinas built since the flagship Marina) while the 7th ave. location has bare concrete walls that were common in pre-flagship-Marina Safeways. Therefore, I'm pretty sure that some variation of the Marina existed before the San Francisco Marina proper, though I can only provide evidence as far as 1959. I guess the existence of a Marina prior to the flagship depends on your definition of "Marina" (or "Malibu Roof" or "Pirate's Hat), because the two stores that predate the Marina flagship have the marina arch, BUT not the marina windows that go all the way to the top of the front. Maybe the extra glass (and maybe the more pronounced arch) made the flagship Marina the flagship Marina?
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Post by TheStranger »

Was the Hacienda Gardens store completely rebuilt, or simply renovated inside with facade changes?

Looking at this Live Local shot of the current Safeway in the area (around 6475 Camden Ave), this store looks like a remodeled gable with a false facade...

http://img182.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ndawz2.jpg

As for the 7th Avenue store you mentioned (and has been photographed both on this site and on mine), one notable design characteristic is that it lacks squared-off wings; the only other Marina that comes to mind right now with that look is one in Winnipeg that I found a 1960s photo of and posted in the Canada Safeway thread.

Every other marina I have seen in person, and just about all I have seen in pictures, has the wings.
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Post by justin karimzad »

The Hacienda Gardens Safeway was completely rebuilt. The reason I know it existed in that shopping center is because I saw a vintage photo of it in a late 1960s Santa Clara County shopping center guide found in the California History room of the main San Jose library. It just closed as an Albertsons (3051 Meridian Ave.) As for the 7th ave. Safeway not having wings, there was also one in San Mateo, CA (now demolished) that lacked wings and looked like an identical twin of the 7th ave. store (I mean, virtually the ONLY difference was the L-shape of the 7th ave. store due to the oddly-shaped lot). Both stores are comfirmed 1959 stores. I didn't even know the Camden Ave. Safeway existed, so I don't know anything about its history.
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Post by TheStranger »

justin karimzad wrote:The reason I know it existed in that shopping center is because I saw a vintage photo of it in a late 1960s Santa Clara County shopping center guide found in the California History room of the main San Jose library.
I wonder if this book is still present at the library, might be a good reason to go down there and check it out at some point...hell, I gotta see if UC Davis's library has anything interesting like that.
justin karimzad wrote:The Hacienda Gardens Safeway was completely rebuilt. It just closed as an Albertsons (3051 Meridian Ave.)
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2& ... ne=5980080

Unfortunately, there's no sign of the marina architecture here (obviously after a rebuild).
justin karimzad wrote:
As for the 7th ave. Safeway not having wings, there was also one in San Mateo, CA (now demolished) that lacked wings and looked like an identical twin of the 7th ave. store (I mean, virtually the ONLY difference was the L-shape of the 7th ave. store due to the oddly-shaped lot). Both stores are comfirmed 1959 stores.
What was the address for this San Mateo store? Was it where the existing, very new (Lifestyle-era) store on El Camino Real is, just south of the Burlingame line?

I could go over that list of stores from that one architect again and see if all these 1959 stores were from that project (though they only handled NorCal).

Makes you wonder which of these stores may be the very first Marina on the planet, if the store at 15 Marina Boulevard isn't it...
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Post by Daniel »

TheStranger wrote:
Groceteria wrote: In fact, there are lots of old pylon-type stores still operating, although most look radically different now.
Are there any stores with the pylon architecture still operating as Safeway (not counting Market Street)?
The longest operating one *I* know about was the one at Fruit & McKinley here in Fresno that operated as a Safeway until 1996? when they sold the remaining skeleton of their Fresno division to Save Mart. That store is STILL operating as Save Mart, and continues to be a moneymaker for them.
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Post by Groceteria »

Daniel wrote:The longest operating one *I* know about was the one at Fruit & McKinley here in Fresno that operated as a Safeway until 1996? when they sold the remaining skeleton of their Fresno division to Save Mart. That store is STILL operating as Save Mart, and continues to be a moneymaker for them.
The Lodi store (pictured at the top of the page in the title graphic) operated upto about the same time, maybe a year less, with original signange.

BTW, I've spilt the "pylon Safeway" posts into a new and separate topic.
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Post by justin karimzad »

The Santa Clara County shopping center guide is a non-circulating reference book. Actually, it's a few books that were published about every year in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and includes nearly every shopping center in Santa Clara County present at the time. Included is its name, a photo, its tenants, the year it first opened, and its tenants. It includes malls, too. Lots of cool photos. The San Jose library California room also has indexed newspaper clippings on microfiche of nearly every supermarket that opened in the area, at least in the 1950s-1980s. You should take a look! Here's a sample of the newspaper clippings, listed under "supermarkets". The number attached to some subjects is the number of microfiche associated with that topic, and there can be up to a dozen articles within each microfiche;
http://www.sjlibrary.org/research/datab ... type=Sp-Sz
The Safeway I mentioned was not the El Camino Real location (although that originated as a 1950s or early 1960s Safeway, and was rebuilt in 1983) That might be the "San Mateo Safeway #2, 1956" listed on the architect's record. I don't know the address of the 1959 Safeway, but it was across from the Key Market at 500 S. Norfolk st. I'm thinking this was the "San Mateo Safeway #3, 1958". It closed as a Safeway in the 1980s, became an independent that closed in 1989, and had been boarded up and delapitated until its 2000 demolition. There are townhouses there now.
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Post by greebs »

I found an artical in the Times dated May 25, 1955 that has me still guessing
about the "Marina" style store. " It is for a store in North Hollywood that is grand opening on May 26 at 11641 Victory Blvd.

"The newest addition to the Safeway chain of markets will afford shoppers a parking lot of nearly 90,000 square feet and is constructed in a design never before used by the Safeway Company. Windows stretch accross the front of the air conditioned market with ceramic tile used between and under the glass areas."
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