(Image: CHS)
With just over two weeks until its announced closure, many shelves at Capitol Hill’s 15th Ave E QFC have already been emptied of discounted groceries and booze.
Signs went up this week announcing a clearance sale at the market that had some shoppers filling their carts with champagne though few people are celebrating the end of the store’s run on the street. Hours have also been reduced with the store now open 9 AM to 9 PM daily.
Officials at parent company Kroger say the grocery is still slated to be closed Saturday, April 24th though it is unclear what will be left to sell at that point. CHS reported in mid-February on the Ohio-based company’s decision to shut down two Seattle stores over the city’s COVID-19 hazard pay saying its most expensive locations on Capitol Hill and in the Wedgwood neighborhood needed to go given the rising costs of operations.
The QFC on 15th has had discounts for stock liquidation for less than 48 hours and it already has aisles like this. (Also a reminder the Kroger is closing this store in bad faith/retaliation) pic.twitter.com/LJ9nIOx6zi
— Jessi Murray (@jessimurray) April 9, 2021
While the company has said workers could be offered positions at other QFC locations including the two Broadway stores “if possible,” Kroger filed federally-required paperwork for axing 109 jobs across the two markets being closed over the $4 per hour hazard pay.
On Thursday outside the other store slated for shutdown in Wedgwood, union leaders and employees spoke out against the company’s moves, chanting, “Hey, hey QFC! Share your profits, stop the greed!,” KUOW reports.
The 15th Ave E closure comes as a new major power in the global grocery industry is growing here on its Seattle home turf. A new Amazon Fresh grocery is set to open soon at 23rd and Jackson as part of 44,000 square feet of commercial space in the new Vulcan-developed Jackson Apartments.
For 15th Ave E, the loss of the grocery and the 17,000-square-foot market sitting empty could be a new challenge after months of COVID-19 related closures. Neighborhood merchants and restaurant owners are watching closely as property owner Hunters Capital works out how best to keep the building and large surface parking lot busy with QFC’s exit.
Not everything is doom and gloom. At least one new business is set to join the area soon as Rubinstein Bagels moves in.
Meanwhile, business at the 15th Ave E QFC is scheduled to continue through Saturday, April 24th.
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17,000-square-foot grocery
This makes me sad. I have been shopping there for 30 years. I am going to miss the people who worked there.
Corporate tantrums serve no other purpose than to undermine their integrity.
Stores are under no obligation to you to operate at a loss.
They were not losing money, per an employee.
Was the employee in question the CFO of Kroger or a bagger at this store? If the latter, I’m not very interested in their P&L analysis.
It wasn’t operating at a loss
Please may it not become another pot store.
Oh please no more pot stores. Poor 15th Ave. so sad what it has become!
Yeah, it’s so sad when people buy a legal substance from a legal store. What’s next, a coffee shop and a Walgreens? Slippery slope.
It’s the cliental and the pointless waste of space for something that’s more useful.
Yeah, the clientele of QFC was pretty rough. All those people who don’t see fit to shop at local business Central Co-op. Plus QFC sells cigarettes which people litter everywhere and which drastically negatively impact health and the health care system. I mean, I’m pro-union but the clientele of QFC was rough. And I’m also certain that there was not a single person who bought both cannabis and groceries on the same trip. Completely different clientele. Also everyone who shopped at QFC was strictly those who lived in the neighborhood. Nobody driving in from outside the area (so parking lot strictly filled with people who lived a few blocks away at most).
Hard to follow what your point is, but a grocery store is useful, a pot shop isn’t. Even if the patrons drop by to grocery store for Funyuns after.
I’d be good with a shipping store like what Ruckus replaced, or a Montlake style library would be great too. An Aldi or Trader Joe’s would be amazing too.
I spoke to a woman there yesterday who lives in Leschi. It’s her preferred store. I’ve heard of of many others who drive there from outside the neighborhood who like it because of its size and the staff.
LOL size? It’s like a third of the Safeway on that same street or the QFC on Broadway.
That’s what I mean–they like it because it’s small!
Central coop is great but totally unaffordable for many.
It used to be my street for hardware and mazo ball soup, now it’s pot and coffee, be glad you still have something, it’s a new world out there.
If qfc has the lease for another couple of years I don’t see how much can happen. Presumably the highest value would be to rebuild as apts with retail
Whats the likelihood that with an absentee owner and no immediate plans for redevelopment, this parcel rapidly becomes a homeless squat and open air psych ward. I feel badly for residents near there. That street could turn awful unless we vote out the ineffective idealists on the Council and find some better leadership.
Probably ought to bite the bullet and use the parking lot for a sanctioned, managed tent city. Better than a wild west chop zone camp site like Miller Park got stuck with. If D3 had a Councilperson worth a crap to anyone but their followers, an orderly transition into an official tiny home site would have already been under way.
But civic planning and other boring competent work doesn’t interest Kshama Sawant. Too busy with a megaphone and with fundraising for “Our Movement.”
As per initiative 502, a pot store cannot be less than 1000 feet from a school. The QFC is less than 1000 feet from QFC and there for cannot become a pot store. Unfortunately, it could become another nail salon.
Sorry, QFC is less than 1000 feet from Meany.
Well now you have the classy 15th and John st Safeway to shop at…