Monthly Archives: October 2015

Exchange will offer 107 health plans in Kitsap

Kitsap residents using the state exchange to shop for health insurance for 2016 will have far more options this year.

Consumers in Kitsap will have their choice of 107 plans offered by six carriers when enrollment opens Sunday, according to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner. That’s a big jump from the 67 available for 2015. 

The increase was largely due to two major carriers, Regence BlueShield and United Healthcare, entering the market for the first time. Regence and United will offer a combined 52 plans through Healthplanfinder.

Moda Health, which sold plans in all counties in 2015, has dropped out of the exchange. 

About 5,000 Kitsap residents were enrolled in qualified health plans purchased through Healthplanfinder in 2015. Another 42,000 were enrolled in the state’s expanded Medicaid program. (See a detailed enrollment report here.)

Statewide, 143 individual plans will be offered through the health exchange for 2016, and 67 will be available outside the exchange. Rates increased an average of 3.9 percent from 2015.

Local navigators are available to help consumers wade through the enrollment process, or determine whether they’re eligible for free health care. See the Kitsap Public Health District website for more information.

The district is holding a special enrollment event Saturday at Kitsap Mall.

Exchange plan enrollment is open from Nov. 1 to Jan. 31. Medicaid (Apple Health) enrollment is open all year.

These are Kitsap’s highest grossing marijuana shops

pacific.cannabis
Pacific Cannabis on Callow Avenue. Josh Farley photo.

Kitsap County’s legal marijuana marketplace is still in its infancy, but total sales now easily top $1 million each month and are growing rapidly.

The handful of shops approved over the summer are just beginning to compete with the four established stores opened last year. The Suquamish Tribe is expected to open a store within the next month.

Some of those new stores quickly climbed the ranks of top grossing marijuana businesses in the county.

Here’s a look at the top five recreational marijuana stores in Kitsap County in September, based on total sales reported: 

  1. HWY 420, Bremerton — $305,616
  2. Crock Pot, Port Orchard — $254,148
  3. Paper & Leaf, Bainbridge Island — $243,724*
  4. Greenway, Port Orchard — $164,788
  5. Pacific Cannabis Company, Bremerton — $161,890*

(* Opened in June 2015 or later.)

Sales reported by legal marijuana businesses are actually available for public inspection, for anyone who wants to spend a lot of time staring at Excel spreadsheets.

The state Liquor and Cannabis board publishes revenue so banks can check money deposited by marijuana businesses against revenue being reported to the state and flag potential fraud. Whether marijuana businesses can find a bank to take their money is another story.

The graphic below gives a more in-depth view of marijuana sales trends in the county:

Central Market clerk bags third in “Best Bagger Battle”

Ryan Hoskins-Central Market
Ryan Hoskins

A Central Market clerk bagged third place Tuesday night in a statewide grocery bagger competition held in Spokane.

Ryan Hoskins, a longtime employee of the Poulsbo store, took home a $1,000 prize from the “Best Bagger Battle,” sponsored by the Washington Food Industry Association.

The 10 participants were judged on a “rigorous criterion of speed, style, technique, and uniform bag weight,” according to a news release.

The overall winner was Candice Lastimado of Admiral Metropolitan Market in West Seattle, who will compete in a national bagger competition in Las Vegas.

The Washington Food Industry Association was founded in 1899 and represents the state’s independent grocers.

Map: Walgreens, Rite Aid stores abound in Kitsap

News broke Tuesday that Walgreens has reached an agreement to buy Rite Aid, in a deal that would spawn a new pharmacy juggernaut.

The deal won’t close until the second half of 2016, so it’s too early to know what changes Walgreens has planned.

FILE- In this June 20, 2011, file photo, a woman exits a Rite Aid store, in Philadelphia. The Wall Street Journal said Walgreens Boots Alliance is in advanced talks to buy Rite Aid. Walgreens declined to comment Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015, when contacted by The Associated Press. The deal would combine the largest and third-largest U.S. drugstore chains, based on store counts. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
AP photo

The company has already alluded to a “harmonized portfolio of stores and infrastructure,” a line that probably sounds nice to investors and ominous to employees.

With a merger on the horizon, it’s worth taking a look at where Walgreens and Rite Aid pharmacies are located in Kitsap, and where stores may be in direct competition.

The two chains have a combined 10 stores in Kitsap, as far as I can gather, with another Walgreens under construction on Bainbridge Island. The map embedded below shows the locations, with Rite Aids in blue and Walgreens in red.

Some of these stores are spaced so tightly you’ll have to zoom in to see them clearly:

As you can see, Rite Aid and Walgreens stores are close neighbors in West Bremerton, Port Orchard and Silverdale. The stores on Bainbridge Island will also be intimately situated once the Walgreens there is completed.

cvsThe green pin on the map represents the CVS pharmacy in Poulsbo, which opened a year ago.

Its presence is worth noting because CVS will be the only major standalone pharmacy chain left to compete with Walgreens/Rite Aid once the merger is approved.

CVS is a newcomer to Washington State, but nationally the chain commands a 58 percent market share based on revenue, according to USA Today. Walgreens has a 31 percent share and Rite Aid trails with 10 percent.

CVS recently bought all of Target’s in-store pharmacies and plans to begin operating them.

Chico timberland offered at auction

erlands.point
Click to enlarge

A 150-acre timber tract in Central Kitsap is up for auction in November.

The land, located west of the Chico Way/Highway 3 interchange, is being offered by Realty Marketing Northwest with a published reserve price of $625,000. Bids are due Nov. 18.

The sale “provides the opportunity to own a highly-productive tree farm, with the added benefit of potential view home sites,” according to the listing in the auction catalog. The property is zoned rural residential.

Assessor’s records show the land is owned by Port Blakely Tree Farms. Once a major landowner in the county, Port Blakely sold large swaths of its Kitsap timberland to Craig Ueland in the past decade.

Poulsbo bookstore testing Bremerton location

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Liberty Bay Books in Poulsbo

Bremerton is a city of 40,000 residents and zero bookstores (well, at least the family-friendly kind).

That will change Saturday when Poulsbo-based Liberty Bay Books opens a holiday pop-up store at 409 Pacific Ave.

The store will only be open in November and December, but Liberty Bay Books owner Suzanne Droppert said she would consider opening a permanent downtown Bremerton location if the pop-up proves popular.

“We’ll see if the readers of Bremerton want a bookstore,” Droppert said.

Liberty Bay Books is taking over a 750-square-foot space next to Hot Java Café. Droppert said her staff will stock the pop-up store with a wide selection of new books, cards and games, then tailor the inventory based on response from shoppers. Customers will also be able to special order books and pick them up at the shop.

Droppert said she likes the eclectic mix of restaurants, retailers and art galleries along Pacific, and thinks a bookstore would fit in well.

“(People) want to see some personality back in downtown Bremerton and we want to bring that personality,” she said.

Hours will be 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, beginning Oct. 31. You can check out Liberty Bay Book’s Facebook page for updates, and watch for a full story in the Kitsap Sun.

What was Bremerton’s last bookstore?

We’ve done some digging in our archives trying to determine the name of Bremerton’s last dedicated bookstore, and what year it closed. We’ve come up with a few candidates but no definitive answer yet.

If you have an idea, please drop a comment below or email me at tad.sooter@kitsapsun.com

County posted promising job numbers in September

Kitsap continued to post promising job numbers through the third quarter of the year.

An estimated 87,800 people employed within the county in September, up 1,400 from September 2014, according to the Employment Security Department. 

The a largest gains came in the government sector, which added 900 jobs from the same month last year.

While the numbers are encouraging, Employment Security has tempered expectations for hiring in the fourth quarter. State economists expect holiday season hiring to remain largely unchanged from last year, according to a recent report. 

Looking ahead to next year, the rollout of new stores at Kitsap Mall and The Trails at Silverdale should bode well for retail employment.

Here’s a graphical look at jobs numbers in the county:

 

Employment/unemployment

As positive trends continued on the jobs front, overall employment trends in the county have been less encouraging. Both the labor force (the total number of Kitsap residents working or seeking work) and the number of people employed slid in the third quarter.

About 104,971 Kitsap residents were working in September, down about 400 from September of 2014.

With declines in the labor force outpacing declines in employment, Kitsap’s official unemployment rate fell to 5 percent.

Here’s a graphical look at employment trends in the county:

Port Orchard Godfather’s becoming Westside Pizza

Godfather27s_PizzaGodfather’s Pizza in Port Orchard is closing but its space on Mile Hill Drive won’t empty long.

Port Orchard Godfather’s owner Steve westsideRunge plans to retire. A Westside Pizza franchisee is taking over the location.

The pizzeria will shut down Saturday and remain closed for about a month for renovation, said Westside Pizza franchise owner Teresa Mahoney. She plans to remove carpet, install hardwood floors, repaint and hang new signs before reopening.

“Basically just update it,” she said. “Then it’s all about customer service, and who I can please.”

Mahoney said the new shop will offer discounts for military personnel, first responders and teachers. The Enumclaw resident is moving to Port Orchard to run the business.

Port Orchard will be the 28th location for Westside Pizza, a fast-growing West Coast chain. Westside was founded in Colville and has shops on Bainbridge Island and in Bremerton, Kingston and Poulsbo.

Godfather’s has been a popular Port Orchard gathering place since opening in 1982. Runge took over in 1997. He said he’s excited for retirement but sad to close the restaurant.

“It’s always hard to give something up after 18 years,” Runge said. “And we’ve had great customers.”

Godfather’s Pizza, soon to be Westside Pizza, is located at 1700 SE Mile Hill Drive.

New plan for Silverdale waterfront development

bucklin.court

A new proposal has been submitted for Bucklin Court, a planned development on the Silverdale waterfront, just east of Silverdale Beach Hotel.

Bucklin Court was initially designed as a three- to four-story, mixed-use development with up to 13 apartment or condominium units. The development would have also featured 4,500 square feet of retail space and 3,700 square feet of restaurant space.

A proposed revision to the performance based development, submitted to the county Oct. 5, would increase the number of residential units from 13 to 30 and eliminate the retail and restaurant spaces.

A preliminary site plan for the revised Bucklin Court proposal shows a mix of one- and two-bedroom units, served by about 30 surface parking stalls and underground parking. Other planned amenities include kayak storage and an entry garden.

The applicant Daybreak Development, LLC. of Belfair. Daybreak Development bought the 1.33-acre property in 2014 for $1 million, according to assessor’s records.

A hearing for the proposal is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 10.

Bucklin Court preliminary site plan by Tad Sooter

A photo tour of The Trails at Silverdale

Ulta Beauty at The Trails in Silverdale on Wednesday, October 14, 2015. (MEEGAN M. REID / KITSAP SUN)

Today was the first day the public was invited into The Trails at Silverdale shopping center, as Ulta Beauty held its soft opening.

TrailsatSilverdale
Click to enlarge

Other stores and restaurants will open between now and mid-2016. You can get a full rundown here. 

There’s still a lot of work to be done on storefronts and landscaping at The Trails, but shoppers could get a feel for how the sprawling retail development off Greaves Way is coming together.

I paid a visit to The Trails this afternoon and snapped a few iPhone photos, which are posted below (the Sun’s Meegan Reid took the Ulta photo above).

I’ve captioned these pics with the tenants I believe are going into the buildings, based on permit documents and marketing materials I’ve seen:

homegoods
HomeGoods, opening Oct. 25
chipotle
Chipotle, opening 2016
dsw
DSW and other retailers. Opening TBA.
corner.bakery
Corner Bakery Café, opening 2016.
grocery
Unnamed grocery store, opening and tenant TBA.
gap.outleet
GAP Factory, opening TBA.

If this isn’t enough to satisfy your curiosity, you can check out The Trails webcam hosted by contractor Robinson Construction. (Warning for arachnophobes: There’s been a spider hanging in front of their webcam lens for the past few days.)