Amazon Go Grocery store expected to open in former Bailey’s Crossroads Safeway

The Safeway at the Crossroads Center closed in June 2019.

The shuttered Safeway at Crossroads Center in Bailey’s Crossroads is expected to be converted to an Amazon Go Grocery store.

Neither Amazon nor the owner or leasing agent for the shopping center confirmed that plan but the Washington Business Journal obtained documents from Construction Journal indicating that Amazon is leasing 40,000 square feet of the former Safeway closest to Staples.

Under the Amazon Go concept, there are no checkout lines. Shoppers use an app to enter the store. They take what they want from the shelves, and their items are automatically scanned as they walk out the door. Amazon sends customers a receipt later and automatically charges their Amazon account.

According to WBJ, the store, at 5821 Crossroads Center Way, would be the largest and the fifth full-size Amazon Go Grocery store in the D.C. metro area. The others, planned for Franconia, the City of Fairfax, and the Maryland suburbs, are about 32,000 square feet.

There are two Amazon Go Grocery stores open in Seattle and about 26 smaller Amazon Go stores – offering prepared food ready to go and other items – in Seattle, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, with others are in the works for D.C., and possibly Crystal City.

Amazon is extremely secretive about its plans for opening Amazon Go Grocery stores in the D.C. region.

The Construction Journal documents do not identify Amazon as the tenant in the Crossroads Center, WBJ notes. However, a letter uses the store name “Mendel” as the tenant contact, which is the same code name Amazon used when it applied for permits for its supermarkets in Franconia and Chevy Chase. More importantly, the letter includes Amazon’s logo at the bottom of all 18 pages.

The buildout at the Bailey’s Crossroads store would take eight months, WBJ states. The remaining portion of the former Safeway would be leased to another retailer.

Demolition and construction at Crossroads Center will be overseen by the property manager, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., according to the plans discovered by WBJ. The Timmons Group, an engineering and architectural firm that designed two Virginia fulfillment centers for Amazon, is also involved. Crossroads Center is owned by RREEF America REIT II.