I mentioned in the previous post two special features that I found in my Mid-South Retail Blog inbox recently from my pal Albertsons Florida Blog. Well, today I'm happy to share with you the first of the pair!
You might remember an essay I posted last summer, "The Aftermath of Seessel's." If you follow me on flickr, you'll recall that concurrently, I uploaded an album of photos investigating Albertsons's presence in the state of Mississippi. (You can view either of those items by clicking on the attached links.) The Seessel's story has been well-documented over the years, but there seemed to be very little information available on Albertsons's other Mid-South endeavors. From what info I could find, I discovered that Albertsons had a minimal presence in Mississippi, entering the state in 1997, peaking at ten stores, and exiting not long after in 2002 (when they also left the entire Mid-South region).
Albertsons Florida Blog was very kind to surprise me with a detailed spreadsheet of the Albertsons stores in Mississippi, complete with store numbers and operating divisions (which I did not find in my original research). It is his and my hope that this table will serve as a valuable, accurate, and composite resource for anyone interested in Albertsons's history in Mississippi, whether they are former employees of the stores or just fans of retail. If you have any additional information, memories, or other comments regarding these stores that you'd like to share, please feel free to leave them in the designated area below this post!
And now, without further ado, here is the table! After much trial and error (in which I attempted to present the table both in HTML code form and as an embedded PDF), AFB has gratefully offered to go ahead and host the table over on his blog, with access reserved to readers of the MSRB via an exclusive link. So in other words, please click this link to access the table! I've also uploaded it as a screenshot, albeit with lower visibility, below; clicking on the photo (or right-clicking and selecting "view image," if you're on a mobile device) will allow you to enlarge it.
Albertsons Florida Blog is no stranger to compiling such tables; you can view his list of Albertsons stores in Florida (alongside other spreadsheets) here on his blog. The table above is almost entirely his work (as someone who has never been to the Mid-South, no less!), with only a few edits of my own added in, namely the current tenants and opening and closing dates. You can also find additional information (in paragraph form) individualized to each store at the links to my flickr account that AFB included in the notes column, which you can access individually at AFB's table page linked above (or, alternatively, you can access all ten of those photos via my album link earlier in this post).
I also thought it would be a good idea to direct you to images of how each of the ten stores look today, so clicking each of the links below will take you to a Google Street View capture of that location. Unfortunately, none of the Street Views extend back far enough to the respective stores' Albertsons days, but they're better than nothing!
Gulfport -- Hattiesburg -- South Jackson (Terry Road) -- Ridgeland -- North Jackson (Ridgewood Road) -- Brandon -- Southaven (Stateline Road; originally opened in 1975 as Safeway) -- Southaven (Goodman Road; originally opened in the early 1990s as Seessel's) -- Tupelo -- Horn Lake
Before the post is over, I'd like to sneak in this quick photo that I found in an old LoopNet listing...
...an aerial view of the old Hattiesburg location (top right area, with the white roof), what I believe to be the only picture in existence (on the internet, anyway) of an Albertsons store in operation in Mississippi! If you're viewing this table and have any photos of your own to share of operating Albertsons stores in Mississippi, whether of the exterior or interior, please feel free to send them to midsouthretailblog [at] gmail [dot] com along with any additional information about them (such as which store they are from, or even a complete post if you wish) as well as how you would like to be credited, and I will happily post them here on the blog.
A very big thank you is in order to Albertsons Florida Blog for this awesome reference table! I am proud to be able to host such a resource here on the Mid-South Retail Blog, and am even more excited to share with you sometime later this summer the second of the two surprises that AFB contributed for us. Be sure to check back soon for that post, and as always, have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!
Retail Retell
It is my pleasure to provide you with such a table! I'm glad you liked it, and thanks for all of the links! I provided you with a few other table formatting options in a comment over on flickr that could help, but the screenshot looks fine to me. And yes, spreadsheets and I are no stranger to each other, that's for sure! I have a little project I've been working on that I hope to launch this coming September, and there will be spreadsheets abound there!
ReplyDeleteThat photo of the Hattiesburg Albertsons was a good find! The longest any of those Mississippi Albertsons stores lasted was 5 years, with a good chunk of them not even making it that long. The Ridgewood Road store in Jackson barely made it a year! I looked up the Hattiesburg Dirt Cheap store thinking they may have left a good amount of Albertsons artifacts in there (they didn't seem like the type of place to do a thorough remodel), but it looks like they stripped out much of the Albertsons stuff when they took over the building from what I saw in the few photos posted online.
You're very welcome, and thanks again for providing the table (as well as all of your help in figuring out how to post it)! I look forward to seeing that project :)
DeleteThank you! I only wish it was either taken closer or in higher resolution (or both), but since it's the only photo I've been able to find of an Albertsons in Mississippi while still in operation, it'll have to do :P I agree, it's definitely crazy how much of a flop their MS operations turned out to be in the end! I do wonder if any of them were profitable, though, since the exit seemed more driven by corporate's desire to focus on operations elsewhere. And yes, I thought and did the same thing regarding the Hattiesburg store, and was met with the same disappointment :( It seems like the space was used for several things before Dirt Cheap Building Supplies, including a furniture store, regular Dirt Cheap, and weekly Hudson's sale location for a period (if I'm remembering all of that correctly), so maybe one of those stripped the décor (although aside from maybe the furniture store, they're all the same company, so it doesn't make that much of a difference...).
I think that Hudson's was on the other side of the mall. What I'm wondering is what store it was originally (Waldoff's or Sears); whatever it was, they left a small part of the original building.
DeleteAnyway, I was trying to figure out if they added an interior entrance because on Google Earth, it does look like they DID add one but not flush with the main mall corridor...to the far right of the store.
And looking at the pictures of the store as DCBS, WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?
https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x889cdc2963a57abb%3A0x811f8656a44c9dae!2m19!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i20!16m13!1b1!2m2!1m1!1e1!2m2!1m1!1e3!2m2!1m1!1e5!2m2!1m1!1e4!3m1!7e115!4s%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-hS1rzo8b7us%2FWKX9qb4BLKI%2FAAAAAAAACJY%2F_5IFs4gOFQ0014B0xfoHH2h-WMGvF_xIgCLIB%2Fw190-h143-k-no%2F!5sdirt%20cheap%20building%20supplies%20hattiesburg%2C%20ms%20-%20Google%20Search&imagekey=!1e3!2s-PNbfPUJUYaQ%2FWKX9jFdqWTI%2FAAAAAAAACKk%2F0F79cwLFqbYaiu1FdpUib-xfdaA8NyYFACLIB&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjnpq7xx5HUAhVK0mMKHatBCAkQoioIfjAN
What appears to be the right side of the building with a walled up area about the size and shape of a mall entrance? Hmmm...
You're correct about Hudson's operating on the other side of the mall, but I do remember finding in my research evidence that they also briefly operated in this store, if I remember correctly for weekly or monthly sales (so not operating here full time, unlike their other store). Unsurprising, since their brands take up most of the mall now. As for who the original anchor was, my guess is Sears, although I've never been able to confirm which of those two it was.
DeleteYes, that's been the burning question! In fact, the comments on my flickr photo for that store are also consumed by a discussion regarding that. Your guess is as good as mine: I can reasonably believe both viewpoints regarding a potential entrance (the one against it being that Albertsons, as a grocery store, didn't want to open into a mall, especially a dying one). But that photo you link to could also prove that there was, in fact, an entrance, which (again) is indeed plausible. I wish I could confirm either way...!
You're welcome! Always happy to help!
ReplyDeleteSomebody once surprised me with a photo of an Albertsons store that closed in 1990 after lasting only 3 years, so who knows what photos could pop up one day. I can't say for certain anything about the profitability of any of the Mississippi stores, but my guess would be the Seessel's branded ones in Desoto County were still doing quite well up to the very end. From what I understand, Seessel's themselves wasn't doing all that bad - Albertsons just seemed to want out of the area. I looked through most of the stores on the list, and the Terry Road store in Jackson seems to have the most Albertsons interior remnants of the bunch (now that Kroger remodeled the Tupelo store). Food Depot switched out the decor, but the floor is still the original Blue and Gray Market tile pattern. All of the other stores have since received some kind of remodel in their days after Albertsons left.
That'd sure be nice! And I bet you're right about that. Too bad it wound up being a different story with Schnucks in charge :/ That's cool about the floor remaining in the Terry Road store in Jackson! I wish I had been able to go to the Tupelo store prior to its remodel, but I wasn't that deep into Albertsons research before that project began :P At least l_dawg2000 has some pictures of it! And I've got my own post-remodel pics I'll finally be uploading in two weeks...
DeleteEven though the Tupelo store's Grocery Palace decor was a bit watered down, it still would have been an interesting experience for you to see in person (although you did get a small glimpse at it during your one trip as the remodel was happening). But at least l_dawg was able to get some photos of that store before Kroger decided it was time for a remodel, so that's store's past wasn't completely lost! Looking forward to the update!
DeleteThat is true! And thanks!
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