While lots of us hope for a new grocery store in the heart of downtown some day soon, an area that has seemed relatively well supplied with grocery stores, an area Safeway abandoned not too many years ago, and whose store was replaced by a Wilco, looks to get a new Grocery Outlet soon.
Grocery Outlet has initiated with City planning a "tenant build out of existing 17,366 sqft building into Grocery Outlet."
The building at 3975 Commercial St SE is next door to Northern Lights Theater Pub.
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| November 5th, 1964 |
The shopping center dates from the mid-60s, and unsurprisingly this part started out as a grocery store. Piggly Wiggly opened in 1964.
Approvals had been contested and took several months. (By our standards today it was not so long, but by theirs it was slow.)
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| October 11th, 1963 |
Within a few years ownership churned and a grocery store there operated in the 1970s under several different names.
Then it stopped being a grocery store, and now looks to return to that.
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| Nearby major grocery stores |
Major stores nearby are Lifesource, Roths, Fred Meyer, Natural Grocers, Trader Joe's, and WinCo. Some of these are more niche, specialty grocers, but they are much larger than a corner store.
This would be the third Grocery Outlet in Salem, joining the downtown-ish one on D and Commercial and one on Lancaster Drive.
This is an interesting move and there might be more to say later.
4 comments:
I would like to see a new Grocery Outlet downtown because the existing one is so run down. I just wouldn't want it to look like so many of the suburban style buildings that they are moving into.
I would also like to see a restored riparian corridor that is currently being occupied by pavement. The police department and MAPS sites really missed an opportunity there.
We can all agree that you never Feel safe when shopping at the downtown grocery outlet. This would be a good move and welcomed.
We do not all agree! While the downtown store is a little shabby around the edges, it's never felt unsafe.
(Moderation note: This is the kind of opinion that requires a handle/pseudonym. Further anonymous comments along these lines will be deleted, as will gratuitous shaming/insulting of campers or other homeless as ipso facto "dangerous," which may be the subtext here.)
Salem Reporter picked up the story, "Grocery Outlet to breathe new life into vacant building in south Salem shopping center." It leans into the idea that the downtown store is unsafe: "[this new store site] shifts a lot of the south Salem customers from having to go downtown, to a pretty rough area downtown."
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