Wonder how much of the store was dedicated to make up, shoes, Marky Mark cardboard cutouts and maybe even multiple Hy-Vee officers walking around
Hy-Vee's weirdest business decision yet?
- Thread starter JP4CY
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KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
I did see someone on Reddit who said they used to work there at the 1st Avenue CR store (so, yeah, not a confirmed source, take it for what it’s worth) and they said that store hadn't turned a profit in two years. I can believe that, I think, although with the prices HyVee charges and the margins they should make on what most of the customers at that store buy, it seems more like poor management than anything else.
That person also said one of the major expenses for that store was replacing all the grocery carts that kept getting taken and not returned. I think a quick conversation with Aldi executives might have revealed a solution for that …
They did get tax incentives from the city to rebuild on that site in 2001. Those ran out in 2021. So … here we are, I guess.
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KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
I also remember the original 1st Avenue HyVee in Cedar Rapids. It was an old brick grocery building like you’d see in a small town somewhere that HyVee had purchased and slapped a HyVee sign on. I only actually went inside once or twice before they tore it down, but I have a vivid memory of walking through the door and seeing the entire front of the store taken up by their beer and liquor department.
It’s still very sad that this entire neighborhood won’t have a place they can walk to to get groceries now.
It’s still very sad that this entire neighborhood won’t have a place they can walk to to get groceries now.
Which makes me wonder if this is a precursor to getting them from the city again. The store is a ********, and a more competitively priced store would be a better option, but if that HyVee does close, watch how quickly a family dollar and a few more "convenience" stores pop up in the area, selling alcohol, smokes and a few dry goods.
The one on Logan Ave in Waterloo was a very, very basic store. The only premium feature about it was having the Wine & Spirits section, which was also pretty basic, but better than some I have encountered.
The downside is, I'm not sure there's another local option in that immediate area.
It's quite likely that is a kindly-worded way to say the stores were, in fact losing money.
A number of stores are also challenged by the "5-finger" discounts (shop lifting) they have been subjected to. Difficult.
There’s a lot of people in that area that are going to realize that Walgreens sells liquor too.
Ok but are they keeping the parking lot open? That was a key strategic spot to park when cruising the ave back in the day.
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
They did block off the McDonalds parking lot with concrete barriers when that closed, so …
KidSilverhair
Well-Known Member
If you know how the current HyVee corporate regime works you would also realize that a lot of the poor store profits are due to pushdown decisions. They've taken a lot of the decision making away from the store directors and department managers. It's sad how bad HyVee is now.
Target did the same thing in Ottumwa, their store there was profitable, but not making enough money so they closed it down. Corporate greed at its finest, with little or no thought to how the decision effects the community.
It would be the new All In Grocers over on Franklin and that's not exactly walkable from the neighborhoods around Allen Hospital there.
It's a shame, there has been so much development on the north end there and to lose a big chunk of it really sucks.
More like Mound View, sort of the Coe/MtMercy area. Wellington is south of 1st ave and a couple blocks back as well. Our biz used to be located down there. It's rough. We had car break in at 6am, find meth paraphernalia in the parking lots, etc.
I would imagine that store not only didn't sell the high-margin stuff HyVee is trying to focus on, but also had additional costs for security and stock loss. And all the complexities of trying to be a good neighbor in a bad area, that's a lot of distraction to deal with that you just don't want.
Why are they closing it???..Store seems fairly busy. On the edge of the "hood" so to speak but really not a bad area where the store is located. Don't understand how that store isn't profitable when there are no other options in the area.
Hy-Vee is trying to become a premium grocery store and that model doesn’t serve that area very well.
None, both of those stores were small and carried the basics.
As someone who worked for Hy-Vee in Cedar Rapids, the 1st Avenue store never made money. The same is true for the store in Waterloo. It didn't matter what those stores did; they were never profitable.
I would like to take this opportunity here to hypothesize that if Hy-Vee wasn't paying Caitlin Clark to endorse their chinese food then they wouldn't have to create these food deserts in economically distressed neighborhoods.
