Two more tenants — Purpose Boutique and The Habit Burger Grill — were announced for The Trails at Silverdale shopping center last week.
Here’s an updated graphic showing where the businesses will be
located:
Tenants have not been named for seven spaces at the trails, including the grocery store building. These include a couple of very large retail spaces, and a restaurant space in the northwest corner.
The state Department of Agriculture will host a tour in Kitsap and Jefferson counties Monday with the aim of uniting local food producers and food buyers.
The tour bus will visit at farms, a grocery store, restaurants, a brewery and a regional food hub. At each stop, industry professionals will discuss their experiences and offer tips for success.
“It’s an opportunity for buyers to get to know farms, but also farms to get to know the market opportunities available to them,” Raymond said.
Click on the flyer for more event information or check out this website for full details.
Safeway is hiring 75
employees in Port Orchard as it prepares to reopen its Bethel Road
store on April 27, company spokeswoman Tairsa Worman said.
The store was previously operated by Safeway but was acquired by Haggen in early 2015. Haggen declared bankruptcy last fall and closed the Port Orchard location Dec. 5. Albertsons bought the store back from Haggen and returned it to the Safeway banner.
The company is hiring full- and part-time workers for all areas of the store, including deli, meat, customer service, bakery and produce, according to a news release.
Benefits for eligible employees include health care, paid vacation and discounts at Safeway and Albertsons.
Worman said priority is being given to former employees of the store.
News of the Port Orchard store opening was welcomed by UFCW 21, which represents local grocery workers.
“We are looking forward to having this store re-open,” UFCW 21 spokesman Tom Geiger said. “Once store opens, we will get a list of employees from the employer and then come in and sign up members to make sure workers there get all the benefits of having a union grocery job.”
Safeway is holding open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday at the store, at 3355 Bethel Rd. SE. Job seekers can also apply at www.careersatsafeway.com.
Update: Haggen confirmed the deal in a news release Friday.
Albertsons is preparing to gobble up more stores from Haggen, but not the shuttered locations in Siverdale or East Bremerton.
According to reports from several news sources, the grocery giant is finalizing a deal to acquire Haggen’s remaining “core stores,” which include the original Haggen stores in Whatcom County. (The Oregonian posted a full list.)
The news was
attributed to a grocery workers union and was not confirmed by
Haggen, Albertsons, or the Federal Trade Commission.
The list of stores being sold does not include former Haggen locations in Silverdale or East Bremerton, which were designated as “non-core stores.”
Haggen already sold off most its non-core stores — including one in Port Orchard — during bankruptcy auctions last fall. The stores in Silverdale and East Bremerton didn’t sell. Both closed in late November and remain empty.
Haggen has not responded to my requests for information about plans for its discarded Kitsap locations.
The grocer owns the property off Wheaton Way in East Bremerton. It leased the Bucklin Hill Road space in Silverdale from a real estate investment group.
If Albertsons does buy Haggen’s core business, it will add another twist to an already improbable retail saga.
A year ago Haggen, a small, Bellingham-based chain, acquired 146 stores from Albertsons and Safeway as the mega grocers finalized a merger agreement. The FTC required the sale to prevent the combined Albertsons/Safeway chain from gaining monopolies in some markets.
Included in the
divestiture were Albertsons stores in Silverdale and East
Bremerton, and a Safeway in Port Orchard.
Haggen’s rapid expansion scheme proved devastating. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September.
Albertsons bought back many of its old stores from Haggen last fall, including the Port Orchard location, which will reopen as a Safeway sometime this year (an opening date has not been released).
Now Albertsons is poised to absorb the remainder of Haggen’s crumbling empire.
The Gig Harbor Safeway that became a Haggen will become a Safeway again on Feb. 3.
But Safeway spokeswoman Sara Osborne said no reopening date has been announced for the vacant Safeway-turned-Haggen in Port Orchard, also set to return to the Safeway fold.
Safeway parent company Albertsons LLC. bought back both stores from Haggen in a bankruptcy auction last fall.
Haggen stores in Silverdale and East Bremerton were not purchased during those auctions and remain empty. The Bucklin Hill Road and Wheaton Way locations were previously operated by Alberstons.
Haggen has left the county.
The grocery chain’s store in the Port Orchard Bethel Junction shopping center was closed and cleaned out last week. Haggen shuttered its stores in East Bremerton and Silverdale at the end of November.
I haven’t
heard exactly when the Port Orchard location shut
down. If you happen to know, please drop a comment below.
Unlike the Bremerton and Silverdale Haggens, the Port Orchard store already has a new owner in place.
Albertsons LLC. bought the location in a bankruptcy auction last month and plans to return it to the Safeway brand. A timeline for the reopening has not been announced.
The three Kitsap County stores were among 146 Haggen acquired from Albertsons and Safeway early this year, as the two mega-grocers completed a merger.
The East Bremerton and Silverdale stores were previously operated by Albertsons. The Port Orchard store was a Safeway.
Haggen’s bold expansion ultimately flopped. The company filed for bankruptcy reorganization in September and held auctions to begin selling off assets.
The Bellingham Herald reports Haggen will try to sell the remainder of its stores, including its original Whatcom County locations, at an auction scheduled for February.
Haggen was in business in Kitsap for less than 9 months:
Today was the first day the public was invited into The Trails at Silverdale shopping center, as Ulta Beauty held its soft opening.
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:
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.)
Click
here for our story on the proposed Haggen store
closures.
Update: Citing bankruptcy court documents, the Bellingham Herald reports Haggen plans to close stores in East Bremerton, Gig Harbor and Silverdale, in addition to the Port Orchard store.
The Seattle Times has a map of proposed store closures here. The closure plan requires court approval.
Haggen plans to close most of its newly-acquired stores and regroup around 37 “core stores” in the Northwest, according to a Thursday news release.
The Seattle Times reports Haggen has selected about 14 Washington stores for closure, including the former Safeway in Port Orchard. Haggen also operates former Albertsons stores in Silverdale and East Bremerton.
In an email, a Haggen representative said a full list of stores slated for closure would be released at 5 p.m. Thursday.
Affected employees will be given 60-day notice before their stores are closed, according to the release.
The reorganization is part of an ongoing bankruptcy for the Bellingham-based grocer. Haggen acquired 146 former Albertsons and Safeway locations across the west early this year but struggled to compete in some of its new markets.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 9.
If you’re a Haggen employee and want to share your perspective on the situation, please contact me at tad.sooter@kitsapsun.com or 360-475-3783.
The full news release is posted below: Continue reading
The Albertsons in East Bremerton will become a Haggen Northwest Fresh store a week from now.
The Wheaton Way Albertsons is scheduled to close May 26 for conversion, and reopen May 28 under the Haggen banner.
Here’s the schedule provided by Haggen:
Bremerton- Albertsons Store at 2900 Wheaton Way
Two other Kitsap grocery stores have already converted to Haggen. A Silverdale Albertsons and Port Orchard Safeway made the change in March.
Bellingham-based Haggen acquired 146 Albertsons and Safeway stores this spring as part of a divestiture required for the merger of the two grocery titans.
You can read all my posts about Haggen’s arrival in Kitsap here. Haggen posted a FAQ about store conversions.
We learned late last week that the Albertsons stores in Silverdale and East Bremerton, and the Safeway in Port Orchard were among 146 locations being acquired by Haggen. (See a map of locations here).
The news generated a lot of interest and questions from readers, particularly those whose neighborhood stores are changing hands.
While we don’t have a lot of detail on how this deal will shake out, I can at least answer some basic questions. Feel free to post yours in the comment section below:
A: Haggen has
been around since 1933 but most of its 18
locations are up north in Whatcom and Skagit counties.
If you haven’t live up that way you may not
have bumped into one.
On top of that, the chain was actually shrinking rather than growing before this blockbuster deal was made.
It’s still Washington’s sixth largest private company (remember behemoths like Amazon and Microsoft are publicly traded).
A: The Haggen family did until recently. Now the majority owner is a Florida-based investment group called Comvest. Comvest has funneled more than $2 billion into 140 companies, according to its literature. Continue reading
