H Mart opened its grocery store near Pike Place in 2019 (Image: H Mart)
In March of 2018, CHS first reported the rumor.
By September 2019, we had confirmed the news.
In summer of 2021, CHS reported the construction in the space creating a new 16,000-square-foot grocery along Broadway was underway.
But we can’t tell you why — exactly — the Capitol Hill H Mart isn’t yet open in the spring of 2022.
CHS gets asked about H Mart every day with the pace of questions picking up earlier this winter as new signs went up along the Capitol Hill Station storefront and the shelves started to be stocked.
The launch of a new @HMartCapHill Twitter account in early March whipped things up even more. “Coming soon!,” its first message read. But the account has gone mostly quiet since the initial burst, the promotional posters along Broadway’s storefront have been covered up, and H Mart fans are starting to get worried.
You can relax. H Mart will be open soon.
A person with knowledge of the situation says H Mart Capitol Hill is expected to open in April after a brief delay. The real estate industry source isn’t part of the company but speculated that supply issues challenging many retail industries including groceries could be partly to blame.
The retail and apartment development H Mart is part of has also made a big change, shifting from Capitol Hill Station to a new brand — Connection on Broadway from developer Gerding Edlen and property manager Greystar. A collection of businesses and services — including a new home for Glo’s and new cafe Seasmith along with a community center for for neurodiverse young adults and a new dentistry office — will also open there through the year.
Coming soon! #CapHillHMart pic.twitter.com/MRwaDvKGyf
— H Mart Capitol Hill (@HMartCapHill) March 4, 2022
But a simpler explanation could be delays in inspections due to resource constraints at the city as it emerges from COVID-19 restrictions. Seattle Fire Department permit inspections required prior to the opening of a new space like the Broadway H Mart are part of the backlog. A tipster says a delay forced H Mart to remove items from its shelves until the required inspection was passed.
The company behind the store has also gone through some corporate shuffling, changing the corporation on the paperwork for permits and licenses.
Through the years since CHS first reported on the rumors, we haven’t heard much from H Mart other than a press release or two about new openings elsewhere in the region. The Pacific Northwest wing of “the largest Asian supermarket chain in America” has done things on its schedule and in its own style. H Mart, as usual, hasn’t responded to CHS’s most recent inquiries about its opening plans.
PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.
Good. Next up – please open a Met market or Trader Joe’s on 15th Ave where Kroger left because they didn’t want to pay their workers a fair amount.
Open ANYTHING in that space. I can’t imagine Trader Joe’s opening a location so close to their 17th & Madison location, but ANYTHING open in that space would be better than the 20″ highway chain link fence around the empty parking lot, and the beige shuttered up block of deadzone on 15th.
Thanks for the update but if they’re on track to open in April it’s hard to understand why they took the posters down.
I’m also curious about the apparent lack of construction activity on the Dick’s site. It looks like they just boarded up the windows and left.
Update: I went by this morning and there was some work going on at Dick’s. But H Mart has not only taken down the “opening soon” posters but has also removed the awning sign with their logo (shown in the photo). There is now nothing at all that identifies this space as a future H Mart. If it does open in April I’ll be pleasantly surprised.
They worked off and on, mostly off for years, at their 2nd & Pine store.
Looks like my intuition was correct that the complete absence of any promotional signage in late March seemed odd, if H Mart really was planning to open in April.
Now there are promo posters up for a different Asian market called m2m. A quick google search of the name indicates that it’s a Canadian based chain.
H Mart owns it. M2M is mentioned in the wiki page.
So it does. I’m just glad something is going in there other than QFC or Safeway. When the H Mart signage came down I was afraid one of those two behemoths had snatched away the space, if only to forestall any more competition. (Fingers still crossed until it actually opens, though.)
I googled it too , and it looks like there is some connection to H Mart . https://foursquare.com/v/m2m-asian-grocery/51ce546a498e9bff944d131a Even some Washington state owned H Mart places seem to have different names like South Lake Union’s District H is owned by H Mart .