The Safeway, 221 N.E. 122nd Ave., is closing in August.
The Safeway store in the Glisan St. Station is set to close next month.
The store’s pharmacy closes Thursday, July 26. Pharmacy staff is being transferred to the Southeast 122nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard Safeway. The grocery store closes Saturday, Aug. 18.
“Like all retailers, we are constantly evaluating the performance of our stores,” Jill McGinnis, Safeway’s director of communications and public affairs said in an email. “Closing an under performing store is always a tough decision, but we are focused on growing our business by being the favorite local supermarket, and running great stores where people love to shop. That’s what will enable us to offer the products and services our customers value most in this market.”
Safeway is “working with the affected employees and the labor unions, where applicable, to attempt to find them other work that is both consistent with the applicable law and/or labor agreement,” McGinnis added. She also said that it is standard for Safeway, when closing a store that is under-performing, to place all of the employees.
The grocery store, in the Glisan St. Station Shopping Mall in east Portland, is across the street from the recently closed Hansen Homeless Shelter, which had nearly a two-year run in the former Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office building.
Even though Safeway did not give a reason why the store was under performing, correlating the homeless shelter’s opening with a rash of shoplifting incidents, and an increase in disruptive activity outside the store, may have contributed to its “under performing,” causing the store’s closure.
Sad but I understand. There were a lot of undesirables in the parking lot and it made it scary to park and go into the store. Unfortunately, I had been going to the 181st and Halsey store for years until that closed, then I switched to 122nd and Glisan.
Now I will use Click List at the Gateway Fred Meyer.
It wasn’t homeless people that kept me out. It was the hugely overpriced merchandise and HORRIBLE lines and service. I have put my groceries down and walked away more than once because the lines were nuts and it just wasn’t worth it.
I have done the same thing at Safeway myself. In fact regardless of the location customer service is not a high priority on Safeway ‘s list
The homeless didn’t bother me much. Did not make eye contact just went to get what I needed and left. My pet peeve is with the bottle drop, it’s always dirty, smells and all those lovely cars plus the folks that seem just to park there with all the over filled cars. When you drive thru the back parking lot behind US their are those wonderful campers. As long as these type of businesses are here I personally feel no Trader Joe’s, New Seasons or Whole Foods would want locate here.
There were plenty of homeless people for sure. But the store was also pretty underserved, few employees and a lot of dirty areas left unclean bothered me. Both before and during the shelters occupancy of the sheriffs building. It was just a bad store.
I don’t think it was a bad Safeway store. If I needed something quickly, it was much better going there than to the scary Fred Meyer on 102nd & Halsey. I do think that the undesirables that hang around after the opening of the Hansen shelter and the social services building (the former Target location) contributed greatly to the store’s demise. I am sad to see it go as the next closest store in the Albertsons on 181st & Glisan.
Yes it did! And now I want to know what will be done with that space! We need something positive and we don’t need any surprises! Tell us what the plan is now, not days before it happens! I was pleasantly surprised with the Gateway Discovery Park opening and see that as a positive for our area. We need a lot more positives like that to turn our neighborhood back around. It used to be a great place to walk and now there are people will carts and garbage all along the streets. Multnomah County Taxes are too high for us to tolerate this! We need change. We need help from the County and the City!!!! No more dumping on this area!!!
I liked that Safeway before it got ruined by the homeless population that hung around there. It certainly was better than going to the Freddy’s on 102nd & Halsey where police cars spaces are reserved on each side of the store.
Thanks a lot Portland. You replace a sheriff’s department with a homeless shelter without asking the community. Now because of the issues caused with that and the DHS office in the old target building we have lost the safeway that was convenient for our neighborhood!. My biggest fear though is what will end up in that building and the Hansen building across the street!! We better be paying Argentina because we do not need a new homeless shelter built there. Quit dumping on our neighborhood. We deserve some positive support!! No way this would be happening in Lake Oswego and Beaverton! Bring something positive to NE and SE Portland!!
BLAME EVERYTHING ON THE INEPT MAYOR WE HAVE IN PLACE..HE DOES NOTHING BUT RAISE TAXES AND UTILITIES TO HELP THE HOMELESS! EVEN ATTACKS HIS OWN POLICE DEPT AS HARASSING THE HOMELESS TOO MUCH