Boston Marketer

Shaw's Supermarkets (West Bridgewater, Mass.) has opened a large new flagship store at the Prudential Center in the heart of Boston.

At nearly 40,000 square feet, the new store is almost double the selling square footage of the existing Star Markets location on nearby Boylston Street that it will replace.

Shaw's says it is tailoring the product offering of its stores to the local urban community, with an emphasis on local fresh and prepared foods and more than 10,000 new items across all departments. In addition, the retailer has added space to frozen foods, dairy, beverages, cereal and snacks so that the store can stay in stock and carry more of the basic items.

The store features large service departments (such as produce, prepared foods, a chef's carving station, bakery, deli, seafood and floral) plus a variety of new specialty shops featuring natural/organic foods, a sushi station and a wine shop.

The store itself has nearly 325 feet of frontage along Huntington Avenue. Storefront windows were designed so that pedestrians have clear sightlines inside the store. The focal point is a 38-foot-high glass atrium that allows natural light into the building.

Inside, open ceilings, bright colors and a stronger lighting system have been designed to bring a sense of spaciousness and energy. Boston history is incorporated into the store graphics.

The store also features heat reclamation for space and water heating, frozen food cases with self-closing doors and metal halide lighting. Refrigeration roof top units were designed to minimize sound and provide visual esthetics better suitable to the urban environment.

“The site is prominently located at the meeting point of two historic and richly diverse Boston neighborhoods, the Back Bay and the South End, and nearby to two others, Beacon Hill and the Fens, ,” noted Shaw's president and ceo Paul Gannon said. ” The area is constantly bustling with office workers, tourists and shoppers.”

Shaw's is the second-largest supermarket operator in New England (behind Stop & Shop) with about 185 stores under the Shaw's and Star Markets banners in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. It's a wholly owned subsidiary of J. Sainsbury Inc. (London), the second-largest supermarket chain in the U.K. (after Tesco).