Still No Word

The AZ Republic brought up the Albertson's closures once again, and has printed a couple of versions of an article over the last few days. Here's the link and the lead to the one in the Gilbert section of the paper:

Shoppers and business owners near one of three Gilbert Albertsons set to shut down in August are wondering.

Albertsons announced in June that nine Arizona supermarkets would close by the end of the summer as part of a shutdown of 100 "underperforming" stores in 12 states. There will be 51 stores left in Arizona.

The closing Gilbert stores are in the Superstition Springs strip mall on the southwestern corner of Power and Baseline roads; the southeastern corner of Cooper and Ray roads; and Lakeview at Morrison Ranch near Higley and Elliot roads.

If you go to the article, you'll notice that the accompanying picture is of the Lakeview Albertson's, even though all the storeowners and customers interviewed are from the other stores. I'm sure that's because ours is the most attractive!

The only reason I'm bringing this up again - even though we have no new information yet - is because I am still hearing rumors ("Basha's; it's definitely going to be a Basha's!" or the worst one yet "I hear they're putting in a Dollar Store!") about the future, and I want to reiterate that these are rumors.

In summary, the Morrison Ranch location is different from the others; the store was built before all the houses were, and so it was indeed an underperforming store (except for the gas station, which was one of the most profitable in the state), but with Lakeview Trails North under construction to the west, the location becomes even more prime, not distressed. Albertson's nationwide was having problems in an industry with very slim profit margins; but grocery stores are still necessary. We will do all in our power, limited though it may be contractually, to ensure that whatever goes into the empty Albertson's space will be good for Lakeview Village and the Morrison Ranch residents - which we are - not something that will pull the center down.

And finally, we have no information from Albertson's themselves yet as to what they plan for that store. Still waiting, and shaking our heads at the rumors.