Jay Heights Grocery Store - The Real Story
A few weeks ago we told you that Jay Heights, a condo project on St. Helens, was going to be supersized and become the tallest residential project in the city. The News Tribune reported on it yesterday. Then I received an email this morning asking me, “Is downtown Tacoma going to have a grocery store like Safeway or Whole Foods?” Wait a minute. Condo projects are a dime a dozen in this town right now. Sure it’s tall. Whatever. A grocery store! That’s the real story here.
The Jay Heights developers are supposedly negotiating with grocers for the first floor commercial space. Who cares? This could be the long awaited grocery store that everybody’s been waiting for. Or could be a good first step grocery store to attract others to downtown.
Specifically looking at the question sent to me, my guess is that it’ll have to be a local grocer willing to take a risk on Tacoma. A Whole Foods or Safeway won’t be able to make the project pencil out. Whole Foods will want more of a retail core in the area, a higher density of a particular demographic, and better traffic flow. They’re a national chain and will have people staring at computer models trying to understand the 5/10 year projected growth of a location. An area in extreme transition is difficult to model. Plus, most Whole Foods tend to be in areas of retail density. So maybe once we have that downtown retail core in place, somebody like that would consider it. Safeway has the store on the hill. Thriftway has a store just north of downtown in Stadium District. Large retailers must consider things like freeway/large road visibility, accessibility, and demographics. It’s going to take someone with a vision and belief in Tacoma to drop a store on St. Helens. What would be perfect is to have somebody with the flexibility to grow and change the assortment as the neigbhorhood matures and changes. Start out simple and small. Grow it as business grows. We have to start somewhere.
Enough from me. Any thoughts?
Previously on Exit133
Link to The News Tribune
Filed under: Tacoma Business, Retail
2 comments
S Sarah April 17, 2012
I was so sad to see the post about the water damage. While it is a relief to hear that the Castle Hall managed to avoid most of the damage, I hope they are able to work on the other areas soon. Since the snow and ice storms were a few months ago, did they just now find the damage?
If you haven’t been to the Pythian Temple, I suggest you check it out. They are very welcoming and like to share the history of the building. It feels like you are in another time when you are there, it really is lovely.
J Joel April 17, 2012
The damage was discovered during the ice storm, and the ice dam was relieved. The Knights are working on preventing this type of backup from occurring in the future. Over the past several months, the priorities were to ensure proper drainage, dry out and dehumidify the interior of the lodge (including the historical books, which have successfully been dried with minimal damage thanks to Phil’s quick response and following proper historical book saving techniques), and then repair. The focus has been on the more public areas first, so that the lodge will be ready for the Magic Lantern convention coming this June (in conjunction with the exhibit at the WSHS). The picture above is from a members area of the lodge.
And I will second Sarah’s comment from above. Come and meet the Knights and Sisters of Pythias. Open, social meetings are the 1st and 3rd Mondays on the month at 7pm. Please come introduce yourself and get to know them better.