The dowdy Safeway at the corner of Bradley Boulevard and Arlington Road in Bethesda that met the wrecker’s ball last year is being replaced with an imminently more modern supermarket, slated to open on October 13. The new market will have a cheese department staffed by a cheese specialist, an olive bar, a Bergmann’s Dry Cleaners, a Starbucks with indoor and outdoor seating, and a bakery with an open-flame hearth oven that will fire up artisan breads daily.
In addition, the store is the first LEED-certified grocery store in Montgomery County. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a certification program of the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit organization. The humongous supermarket chain has two other LEED-certified stores—the one in Georgetown, and another in Santa Cruz, Calif.
Craig Muckle, spokesman for Safeway, said that in order to receive the certification, the store used various eco-friendly building materials and practices, including with the refrigeration, lighting, roof, storm water management and composting. Safeway also received points for not using any additional land to build the store. The supermarket is, however, 48,000-square feet, making it nearly twice as big as the old store, built in 1956. The new store makes up the difference by taking over the space previously occupied by surface parking, and by having an underground parking lot instead.
Muckle said the new store will be “comparable if not better” than the chain’s other area “lifestyle” format stores, which emphasize perishable offerings, kiosks and non-traditional arrangement of the food and non-food items (and which I still find confusing).
He said it will be better than the store in Kensington “if for no other reason than it’s newer.” That store, located at 10541 Connecticut Ave., may get some retrofitting and upgrading in the future, he said.
Muckle said the new Bethesda market “will be comparable to the Georgetown store in terms of amenities,” although it is significantly smaller (the cheese department will be similar but not quite as large, for example). And while the Bethesda store will have an upgraded Starbucks coffee bar with indoor and outdoor seating—unlike the Georgetown locale, it won’t have a den and fireplace.
