Build to Suit: A Tale of Two Cities

Bend, Oregon
In the last ten years, the population of the high desert city of Bend, Oregon has grown from 19,000 to 55,000. Planned communities are rising faster than roads can be built to accommodate them. C&K Markets, which includes Ray's Food Place, Shop Smart and PriceLess Foods, saw the opportunity to develop a full-service Ray's Food Place store on the outskirts of town- en route to popular Mt. Bachelor. They chose CDS to help them design an interior that would attract high-income shoppers, discriminating newcomers and vacationers without alienating the local residents who are the bread and butter of sustaining a store.

The design goal of Ray's Food Place Bend marries high desert with high comfort. "We wanted people to feel as though they were walking into another room of their house," says Ed Kessler, COO, C&K Markets. Indeed, the stained concrete floors, open rafter design, and warm colors look more like a vacation cabin out of Sunset Magazine than your traditional grocery store. The CDS design team spent a lot of time on selecting the right color scheme, differentiating departments and even choosing the prints to hang on the walls.

"Fresh" is a unifying theme in the store. Customers encounter a scratch bakery, full deli with a cook-to-order grill, sushi bar and bustling catering service. With the second largest wine selection in the state, it's not unusual to sell a $750 magnum of champagne. The imported cheeses, self-serve olive bar, in house coffee roaster and over 300 items in bulk make this a gourmet destination for upscale customers.

The store design will serve as a prototype for additional Ray's Food Places in communities like Bend.

Creswell, Oregon
Creswell is a blue-collar bedroom community of Eugene/Springfield in Oregon. Most of the people who shop the Ray's Food Place in Creswell are new home buyers and rural landowners, occupying houses under $170,000. Here the meat department is large and there is not much call for organic produce or expensive champagne. Price and value weigh heavily in their choice of market. In the retail grocery business, budgets are tight, but even if the design budget had been larger, Kessler didn't want to over-design the interior. "If you spend a lot on the interior, customers think the groceries cost more, too. This is not Bend and CDS understood that it called for a more traditional décor package," says Kessler.

To make the store less sterile and more inviting, CDS used a warm palette of colors and materials that work in concert. Additionally, colorful signage and accent lighting help to distinguish individual departments. CDS worked within the budget and created a clean, neutral look at the Creswell store.

From a design perspective, the Creswell and Bend store are as different as the communities they serve. "Strong design needs to do two things: make people comfortable in the store so they want to spend more time and showcase the product," insists Rick Graap. There is no better illustration of that than the Bend and Creswell stores.

Another case of CDS helping retailers sell more by design.