Ben Schumin

On December 19, 2009, the day that the Blizzard of 2009 came to town, the Safeway store in Wheaton, Maryland closed its doors after having conducted a closing sale for several weeks prior. Shortly after the store closed, the building was sealed, with the marina-style building’s large windows covered by large sheets of plywood, with “CLOSED” written across the front of the building in spray paint. Suprisingly, the building’s signage was not removed, nor was the sign next to the road dismantled. However, unlike most sites where Safeway stores reside, Safeway owns this site rather than leasing it. Perhaps this is why the signage was retained.

This site was slated for redevelopment, with plans calling for fourteen stories of apartments to rise from the site with a new and much larger Safeway store at street level, with underground parking. However, before redevelopment began, this vintage Safeway, easily more than forty years old, stood in this condition for nearly two years awaiting its fate before being demolished in November 2011.

These photos were taken on December 27, 2009, approximately one week after the store closed.

More at The Schumin Web:
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Ben Schumin is a professional photographer who captures the intricacies of daily life. This image may be used under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. Please provide artist attribution, as well as a link to the original photo and to the license terms.