Grocery Stores

[maxbaby]

Hy-Vee to enter the Twin Cities area.
http://www.startribune.com/business/246894631.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... tores.html

[MNdible]

Seems like Hy-Vee should just buy out Rainbow wholesale, since Roundy's has apparently lost interest in it.

[Silophant]

Excellent! Growing up near Mankato (home of two Hy-Vees and two Cubs), I definitely preferred shopping at Hy-Vee. By which I mean my parents did, since teenage Silophant rarely made grocery shopping decisions.

[TommyT]

I would prefer a Festival Foods, but with any luck they'll stick one of these in the uptown area (or close by at least)... we need something better than nasty Uptown Rainbow but less expensive than Lunds/Byerly's/Kowalski's. Either that or bring back the plans to demo and expand Uptown Rainbow... that looked like a pretty sweet plan.

[twincitizen]

Hy-Vee in talks to anchor new CSM, Opus developments: http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/n ... ments.html

Page 2 of the article is not super encouraging, as far as potential urban locations go. They do mention possibly acquiring some Rainbow sites if they become available, but prefer to build new

[FISHMANPET]

This has been discussed in at least 3 threads, and since there are 6 total Rainbow stores that are being sold and run as Rainbows, and also 9 additional Rainbows still for sale, that's 15 Rainbows we can talk about it.

For those of you not in the know, here's the Star Tribune:
http://www.startribune.com/business/258288141.html

In a deal that reorders the Twin Cities grocery market, the majority of Rainbow Foods stores will be purchased by a consortium of local supermarket chains — led by Supervalu — as Rainbow’s corporate parent, Roundy’s Inc., exits the market.

There are 6 Rainbow stores that Roundy's has sold that will continue to operate as Roundy's. Supervalu will own 2 of them 100%, though it's not to my knowledge known which two. It looks like Jerry's Enterprises, which runs two stores in Minnesota and 1 in Florida is involved in the purchase, as well as two other companies that look to be Cub franchisees. Lunds has also bought a couple of stores that they will rebrand, though no idea if they're part owner of the 4 mysterious Rainbow stores.

Individual redevelopment ideas of each Rainbow can probably go into their own thread, but we can talk about groceries here. Or a mod can move all the Rainbow posts here. I don't know, I just post here

[LakeCharles]

The ones that aren't changing names are what I'm curious about. Does Supervalu or Lunds own those, or do they own them in partnership? I'm pretty sure the ones not changing are going to be on the chopping block. The two I know of, Minneapolis Lake Street and St Paul Midway, are both very close to existing Cub stores.

Presumably the other buyers listed, "Jerry’s Enterprises, Haug Enterprises and Radermacher Enterprises," will be running those stores that don't change names. So it doesn't particularly matter that they are close to Cub stores, except that possibly the markets are oversaturated.

[mulad]

I was surprised to see that in my neck of the woods, the Rainbow on Larpenteur in Roseville is going to become a Cub. It's not very far from the Cub at HarMar Mall, so I'm curious what will happen there. Someone also mentioned Cub's historical relationship with TCF Bank for in-store banking. HarMar had been weird for a long time since it had a TCF at the corner of Snelling and County B, as well as one in the Cub there. Of course, that TCF moved a few years ago, across County B and to the east a bit. Some Rainbow locations have other banks in them (Associated Bank?). I don't remember off the top of my head if there's anything at the Larpenteur Rainbow.

[FISHMANPET]

They're actually Guaranty Banks. I suspect the only exist in Rainbow stores (at least around here), and looking at their website, they have exactly 18 branches in Minnesota, which just happens to be the exact number of Rainbow stores...

[Suburban Outcast]

I never get the deal with business locations in Roseville:

- The Starbucks across from another Starbucks on 36/Fairview (even if the original one was busy, it still looks ridiculous having two standalone locations literally across the freeway from one another)
- The Wal-Mart at the Twin Lakes development, only a couple miles from one in St. Anthony (Silver Lake Village - now closed apparently which seems unnecessary since it wasn't that old)
- Those random TCF Bank locations (If I recall correctly they had a TCF on Lexington/B in addition to that one directly in HarMar like Mulad said until they built that new one near the Target)
- Now 2 Cubs within a short distance (are they going to close HarMar's Cub now?)

My friend lives across the street from Rainbow, and they remodeled it back in 2009 or so (RIP cheap Roseville 4 theatre), so I wonder if Cub is going to revamp the exterior so it looks more like a typical Cub (dull and cheap).

[Snelbian]

I'm very interested to see how this affects the bus barn/Midway redevelopment at University and Snelling, especially since there's already a Cub very nearby (and a Target, Walmart, Aldi and Whole Foods for that matter).

[uptowncarag]

The list of the stores that will close is interesting. Watch out for Hy-Vee as they enter the Twin Cities market. It is a great store and it knocks Cub out of the water.

[maxbaby]

Here is what stores are going to be what.
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/05/07 ... es?from=hp

[twincitizen]

To sum up, the Twin Cities currently has 27 Rainbow Foods locations.
2 (Eden Prairie and Woodbury) will become Byerly's, lucky for those communities.
EDIT: I wager Byerly's will eventually close their Suburban Avenue location on St. Paul's east side. They've probably wanted out of that area for years, especially after Cub and Aldi came to the neighborhood. If they could get a good offer on the land, I think they'd take it and run.

10 are becoming Cub Foods, some owned by Supervalu directly, others by the amalgamated ownership group (Cub Franchisees, Supervalu, etc)

6 will remain Rainbow Foods (god knows why though...some are too close to existing Cub locations, others are in likely redevelopment areas, some fall into both categories like Midway and Hi-Lake)

9 other locations were not sold today and remain owned by Roundy's for now. If buyers do not emerge, they will likely close. Chances are that Hy-vee swoops in and buys at least a couple of these.


Honestly, aside from the 9 locations that were not sold today, this looks like a coordinated effort among the local chains to block Hy-vee from easily grabbing a huge share in this market. Hy-vee already announced their plans to enter the Twin Cities market, with several stores on the way, predominantly in the outer ring. Perhaps coincidentally, the 9 stores that were not sold today are also located in the outer ring suburbs.

[twincitizen]

More details here, if you're super interested (which I am for some inexplicable reason...must I know everything about everything?!):
http://supermarketnews.com/retail-finan ... cquisition

"Ten of the acquired stores would be converted to the Cub Foods banner and two to the Byerly’s banner, with the other six remaining Rainbow Foods. Of the 18 stores, Supervalu will have 100% ownership in three Cub stores; majority ownership in two Cub stores; minority ownership in three Cub stores; 100% ownership in two Rainbow stores; and a 100% interest in 11 pharmacies."

The question then is which two Rainbows will Supervalu own 100%, and why aren't those becoming Cub??

Also noted in a separate article on that site: one of the six Rainbow locations (Plymouth) will be owned 100% by Lunds, but remain a Rainbow for the foreseeable future. As I stated before, some of this just really looks like they're blocking Hy-vee. There's a Lunds 1/4-mile away...and Lunds is going to operate a sort-of competing Rainbow. Ok...

[Minneboy]

It's too bad the Hy-vee didn't buy the Uptown one and made the block something more in tune with a proposal a few years ago. Would have been awesome.

[LakeCharles]

Honestly, aside from the 9 locations that were not sold today, this looks like a coordinated effort among the local chains to block Hy-vee from easily grabbing a huge share in this market. Hy-vee already announced their plans to enter the Twin Cities market, with several stores on the way, predominantly in the outer ring. Perhaps coincidentally, the 9 stores that were not sold today are also located in the outer ring suburbs.

I'm not saying you are wrong. I know nothing about grocery stores or their markets. But just based on your post here, Cub/Lunds are buying up ONLY the stores in the areas Hy-Vee is NOT interested in moving into. If they wanted to make life tough for Hy-Vee, wouldn't they buy up the Rainbows in the areas Hy-Vee is actually considering?

[seanrichardryan]

Collusion? I assume the sale will have to pass an FTC smell test.

[Mdcastle]

Article says Hy-Vee wants stores around 90,000 square feet, and the Rainbows are only 60,000.
http://www.startribune.com/business/258396101.html

[fehler]

Anything but Coburns.