Stopping & Shopping

Stop & Shop built a brand new store right next to the existing one where we do most of our food shopping. It opened a couple of weeks ago, so I've had the chance to have a bit of a look around.

At first the idea of plopping a new store next to an existing one seems a bit puzzling. But renovating an existing building is not always the most practical or cost-effective option. New construction allows the existing store to remain open for business without disruption until the new one is ready, and also invites the use of more environmentally friendly building techniques and materials that may not have existed when the older store was being built.

In the case of this particular store, due to the way it was situated on the property there was no way to expand the building's footprint except to come forward into the parking lot, and that would surely have disrupted the store's normal operation. The adjacent strip mall had a large empty store, the former site of an Ames that closed over a decade ago, so the builders simply knocked down that part of the structure, leaving more than enough space for the new store.

Meanwhile, the new supermarket follows the basic template that Stop & Shop has been using for its recent stores. Bakery, deli, and prepared foods are given prominent and more abundant space just inside the entrance. We don't do a lot of cooking, due mostly to laziness, so this arrangement suits us nicely. The asiles of the rest of the store seem a bit wider, and the general newness of things makes trips to the grocery store somewhat more pleasant. And atmosphere definitely affects sales. It seems subjetive, but I believe that people do connect with stores on an emotional level, at least a little bit.

Supermarket chains survive on very thin margins, and if companies don't invest in keeping their stores up to date, shoppers will go elsewhere. Having lived near an undersized, run-down, and generally quite depressing Star on Broadway in Somerville for over a decade, I can attest to this. I avoided this miserable store for exactly these reasons (unless it was an emergency), and always wondered why the company didn't bother to fix up the place. Then Stop & Shop opened a big, shiny Somerville store a short distance away, and that pretty much eliminated any remaining reasons for people to keep going to the ratty old Star; it closed, supposedly for renovations, a couple of years later, but it turned out to be permanent.

I don't know what's going to happen to the old Stop & Shop building now. I suppose it could be subdivided into smaller spaces (which are easier to lease), or maybe it too is going to be razed to make way for something else. This particular strip mall has had its share of ups and downs over the years, and recently there has been a fair bit of other retail development in the area as well, so with that and the sucky economy, it may be a while before anything happens.