THE STORY OF SAFEWAY IN CHILLIWACK.....WHEN GROCERY SHOPPING WAS AN EVENT – If you were born in or lived in Chilliwack in the 1970s or earlier there is a good chance you will associate grocery shopping with a trip to Safeway in Chilliwack’s vibrant downtown. Until the 1980s Safeway dominated the Chilliwack supermarket shopping scene, even when there were at one time two Super-Valu stores operating in the City. In fact, Safeway has had a presence in Chilliwack for over 85 years. Safeway had expanded from the US into Canada in 1928 by opening nine stores, including one in the relatively small City of Chilliwack. The large grocery chain had bought out local grocer H. A. Young and took over his existing space in the Gilbert Block, at the north-west corner of Yale Road East and Nowell Street. Safeway opened its doors in Chilliwack for the first time on Monday, December 10, 1928. After operating for seven years in limited space on Yale Road East, Chilliwack’s Safeway store (still the only supermarket in town) moved to its second location at 35 Wellington Avenue, on the north side of the street, three stores east of Mill Street, immediately to the left of the Davies and Logan Hardware Store. The grand opening of Safeway’s new store at its second Chilliwack location was on Friday, May 10, 1935. The new Safeway store on Wellington Avenue was very modern and definitely bigger than the original store but still very small by later standards as grocery stores back then were not the huge diversified markets of today. In a typical grocery store of the early 1930s (which covered about 1,000 square feet), customers bought only one or two days worth of food at a time. This was because blocks of ice were the standard source of refrigeration and there were fewer cars for transporting the goods home, thus a household’s (and Safeway’s) ‘inventory turnover’ was very high. By the late 1940s Canada Safeway’s corporate management recognized that its Chilliwack operation on Wellington Avenue had long outgrown its cramped quarters and plans to build a bigger and more modern Safeway were set in motion. A new third Safeway location in Chilliwack’s downtown core was identified, just 80 metres north of the current one, at the south-east corner of Mill Street and Victoria Avenue. The vacant land was purchased and construction on the new store commenced in April 1950. On Thursday, November 9, 1950, after 15 years at the small and crowded location on Wellington Avenue, Chilliwacks new brick-and-glass $165,000 Safeway store at 20 Mill Street was officially opened. Newspapers in the Valley headlined it as “British Columbia’s Most Modern Food Store”. Literally thousands of shoppers flocked to the new store on the opening Thursday and Friday. Not only was it bigger than its predecessor with ample free parking, but it was essentially ‘state-of-the-art’ modern in all supermarket aspects. For the decade of the 1950s the new Safeway store on Mill Street, along with Eaton’s, served as the ‘anchor magnets’ that drew shoppers to downtown Chilliwack. Personally, as a young boy, I recall that shopping at the Mill Street Safeway with my parents on a Friday night was pretty exciting as it was very crowded, people were dressed up, you would always run into someone you knew, and downtown seemed to be alive and full of lights. As a bonus for a youngster, when you left Safeway, you got the opportunity to be spooked by the ‘haunted’ McCaffrey house right across the street from the store. However, as the nature of modern supermarkets continued to evolve quickly, after just ten years of operation Safeway’s ‘new’ store on Mill Street was deemed not adequate for the chain’s current and future needs in Chilliwack. With this looming reality in mind, Canada Safeway Limited had earlier purchased some large frontage on the west side of Main Street and by late 1961 Chilliwack’s Safeway operation would no longer be located at the corner of Victoria Avenue and Mill Street. The building that had been specifically built for Safeway in 1950 was nevertheless still relatively young and functional and Canada Safeway actively sought a buyer for its Mill Street property. The vacated Safeway building would however remain unoccupied for the next 18 months. Eventually, in January 1963, Overwaitea purchased the property and on April 2, 1963 the rival grocery chain opened its new store on Mill Street to big crowds. Eventually it became no longer feasible to operate a larger-scale grocery store in the now aging brick building on Mill Street and it was ‘subdivided’ into a number of small commercial/retail units with all entrances facing the old parking lot. Subsequent to 2006, the old Safeway building then underwent a transformative upgrade and was ‘reborn’ with much fanfare as Chilliwack’s new Home Hardware store. Part of the change included doing away with the familiar rust-brick colour and painting the entire building red, pale blue, and white. However, this venture eventually closed and today Chilliwack’s old Safeway building 9360 Mill Street is largely unoccupied and most of the space is advertised for lease. There is one small arts-and-craft tenant still operating in the building. In early 1960 Canada Safeway Ltd. had acquired options on ten lots comprising a large parcel of land on the west side of Main Street, between Princess Avenue and Kipp Avenue. Here it intended to build a large and ultra-modern Safeway store which would be a leader in both modern design and functionality (not to mention shopper-friendliness). On September 6, 1960 Safeway unveiled to Chilliwack City Council its plans for the new Safeway store on Main Street, while at the same time applying for four of the ten lots to be rezoned from residential to commercial. At this time the large land parcel accommodated four businesses: City Welding and Machinery Ltd., Johnstone’s Food Lockers, Century Plumbing and Heating Ltd., and the CCF committee rooms. In October 1960 Safeway exercised its options and acquired the ten lots comprising its Main Street land assembly and on November 7, 1960 Chilliwack Council cleared the final hurdle for Safeway by approving the rezoning of the four lots in question. In January 1961 Safeway demolished the remaining structures on its development package and soon site preparation for Chilliwack’s new Safeway was underway. In April 1961 construction of Chilliwack’s new Safeway commenced and throughout the rest of that year all of Chilliwack watched that particular block on Main Street with excitement as the new and modern supermarket structure gradually took shape. As summer of 1961 turned into fall, the new Safeway was almost complete. Finally, on Tuesday, October 24, 1961 Chilliwack’s brand new Safeway store officially opened its doors for business at 115 Main Street. At that time it was the second largest Safeway store in all of British Columbia. The impressive-looking finished product was a concrete-block building with a distinctive gull-wing roof form which employed arching glue-laminated timber beams and an area of extensive glazing on the front façade. The spacious parking lot could accommodate over 135 cars. In addition to all the new technological and architectural features, the new Safeway had a 20-seat cafeteria just to the left of the south entrance. When my mom took me there the first time I was just amazed and blown away that they had a ‘restaurant’ in Safeway and you could sit down and have a Coke and a donut (which we often enjoyed if we were good little shoppers). Chilliwack’s new Safeway was an instant hit. In addition to the free downtown parking, it offered a wide selection of virtually everything and it drew shoppers from beyond Chilliwack’s boundaries. The 1960s was probably the ‘golden age’ for downtown Chilliwack as the economy was relatively strong and Eaton’s and Safeway continued to draw shoppers. On December 1, 1965 Chilliwack’s new (and bigger) liquor store opened up adjacent to Safeway (to the back and left of the store) which further increased consumer traffic. Chilliwack’s new Safeway on Main Street would operate for over four decades at this fourth location. In the 1980s two factors marked the start of the ultimate demise of Safeways reign as the dominant downtown Chilliwack supermarket. The population of the suburbs of ‘South Chilliwack’ (i.e., the area south of Highway 1) was starting to boom, due to both organic growth and population migration from north of the highway. One consequence of this significant demographic shift was the development of Chilliwacks first two shopping malls, the second of which would include the fifth Safeway in Chilliwack’s history. Secondly, the City of Chilliwack began consolidating land downtown and making plans to create an urban development called “Salish Plaza”. This project included a supermarket component which would be Save-on-Foods, located a mere 200 metres south-east of the Main Street Safeway, and 27 years newer and again with ample and free parking. While Cottonwood Mall opened in August 1974, it was the opening of the Chilliwack Mall in September 1981 that had a direct impact on the Main Street Safeway store. In fact, the very first store to open in the Chilliwack Mall was the new and modern Safeway store on September 1, 1981. Meanwhile, Save-on-Foods opened in Salish Plaza to much fanfare seven years later on February 15, 1988 and it drew 11,000 shoppers in its first two days of operation. Canada Safeway Ltd. still wanted a presence in downtown Chilliwack and thus despite the increased competition and dwindling clientele and sales, Safeway continued to operate its Main Street store for almost two decades longer. In 2004 developers made plans to expand and improve the City Gate Shopping Centre located at the intersection of Yale Road West and Cheam Avenue. Part of this expansion included Canada Safeway Ltd. building a bigger and state-of-the-art Safeway store as the Centre’s anchor tenant. On Thursday, July 13, 2006 the sixth Safeway store in Chilliwack’s history opened for business and the very next day, July 14, 2006 the once grand Safeway store on Main Street closed its doors for good after operating at that location for 45 years. Subsequent to the closure of the Main Street Safeway operation, a discount grocery store leased the old space and tried to make a go of things. Eventually however the concept of any kind of grocery store succeeding in such a large venue with strong and more modern competition close by led to the end of grocery store tenants in the old Safeway building on Main Street. After a period of time when the structure remained vacant, a liquidation operation operated for a while from the old Main Street building. Eventually and inevitably the liquidation enterprise also failed and the owner was unable to attract any new tenants. Canada Safeway Ltd. then put its Main Street property up for sale but before any meaningful negotiations could take place, it was determined that the site required remedial environmental clean-up due to underground contamination. It was initially thought that contaminants had migrated from an adjacent service station but it was later believed to have been caused by a cleaning operation across the street. At that point, Safeway postponed its plans for the sale and ultimate redevelopment of the site. Instead, it concentrated on pursuing the party that caused the contamination for recovery of the future costs of the environmental clean-up but no reimbursement was ever realized (nor was any clean-up ever undertaken). The once grand Safeway building at 9299 Main Street was then boarded up and it remains that way today. In addition to obvious economic factors, without site remediation, the land is undevelopable and thus essentially unsellable. Safeway appears content to just hold the vacant property and to not spend more money on it at this point (other than installing pay-parking machines on the lot). City Council was (and is) obviously not pleased with the lack of any action or progress on this major downtown site and to that end in February 2014 it introduced a new vacant-premises bylaw which will see owners of buildings such as the old Safeway property on Main Street be required to purchase a $4,000 permit to be allowed to leave a building empty for two years. This bylaw is part of the City’s new plan for dealing with the issue of “brownfields” (i.e., properties that have to undergo environmental remediation before they can be redeveloped). In remains to be seen if a $4,000 fee will compel Safeway to spend further on its Main Street property. Today Chilliwack has a number of major grocery store chains operating within its boundaries, one of which is Safeway (with its two current stores, the fifth and sixth in the City since 1928). Consumers thus have a wide choice of where they do their grocery shopping. However, there was much less choice back in the day and, given my age and memories, to me grocery shopping in Chilliwack will always bring to mind shopping at earlier downtown Safeway stores, specifically the Mill Street and Main Street locations. These two structures still exist today and when I happen to pass by them, I briefly reminisce about how alive it was in and around these establishments many years ago. Back then, downtown Chilliwack was the place to be, and shopping at Safeway was part of the social fabric of the era. IMAGES: #1 - This photo, circa 1928, is taken from the top of the Hart Block, facing east along Yale Road East. The first location of Safeway in Chilliwack is indicated to the rear left of the shot, at the corner of Yale Road East and Nowell Street in the Gilbert Block. Today the building in which Auld Phillips still operates occupies this site. (Photo source: Chilliwack Museum and Archives Collection, Photo Number: PP500585) #2 – This image shows an advertisement that Safeway ran in late December 1928 in the Chilliwack Progress when the store had been open for less than three weeks. At that time, Safeway’s corporate slogan was “Distribution Without Waste” and this phrase would appear on every advertisement for a number of years to come. Note that Safeway’s phone number back then was just two digits….”43”. Safeway also offered free delivery for purchases exceeding $3.00. (Image Credit: Chilliwack Progress Archives) #3 – This 1948 aerial photo is looking north-west towards Five Corners and beyond and it shows Chilliwack’s second Safeway store (1935-1950) on Wellington Avenue, just to the left of the Davies and Logan Hardware Store. (Image Credit: This is The Story of Chilliwack, Chilliwack Board of Trade) #4- This 1948 aerial photo looks north-west towards Five Corners and beyond and shows the future Mill Street Safeway location at the corner of Mill Street and Victoria Avenue as a vacant lot at that time, two years before it was developed. Note the series of full-growth trees on the east side of Mill Street which would have to be removed prior to construction. (Image Credit: This is The Story of Chilliwack, Chilliwack Board of Trade) #5 – This photo was taken on Nov 9, 1950 on the opening day of Chilliwack’s modern new Safeway store on Mill Street. There was a large crowd of shoppers (mostly women, some with baby carriages) lined up Mill Street back towards Wellington Avenue waiting to enter the new store. Note the Union Jack and celebratory bunting on the façade of the building. (Image Credit: Chilliwack Progress Archives) #6 – This photo is from late August 1961 and shows construction of Chilliwack’s new Safeway store on Main Street is progressing but a lot of work remains to be completed before the store opens in less than two months’ time. (Image Credit: Chilliwack Progress Archives) #7 – This 2007 photo shows in a modern context where Chilliwack’s second Safeway store on Wellington Avenue was located. Today the previous Safeway site is occupied by a building that houses J. Ballam Furniture at 45921 Wellington Avenue. (Image Credit: Chilliwack History Perspectives Collection) #8 – This is a 2006 photo of Chilliwack’s third Safeway store (1950-1961) facing south-east from Victoria Avenue towards Mill Street. The facade of the brick building has been boarded up at this time and a number of small leasing units have their entrance from the parking lot to the right. (Image Credit: Chilliwack History Perspectives Collection) #9 – This is 2015 photo of the old Safeway building on Mill Street, taken from the same perspective of Image #5, 64 years after the new store first opened its doors. (Image Credit: Sandy Mullan Steinson Collection) #10 – This is a 2010 photo of the Main Street Safeway store essentially as it continues to appear today, boarded-up and awaiting its currently unknown fate. (Image Credit: Chilliwack History Perspectives Collection) #11 – This is a 2012 shot of Chilliwack’s fifth Safeway, the now 34-year-old store located at the Chilliwack Mall (Image Credit: Chilliwack History Perspectives Collection) #12 – This is a 2012 photo of Chilliwack’s sixth (and newest) Safeway store opened in 2006 as part of the shopping complex at Yale Road West and Cheam Avenue. (Image Credit: Chilliwack History Perspectives Collection)
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 00:51:44 +0000
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