Zohran Mamdani’s political surge in New York City, of course, has a grocery store element.

Soaring prices, faded services, and eroded humanity are an industry-wide trend that is hitting hardest in America’s largest, busiest, most expensive cities.

With this month’s nearly overnight closure of the Broadway Whole Foods only the latest major grocery corporation cutback in the city, don’t look to Seattle leadership to champion city-run grocery stores — yet.

“I’m not looking to legislate anything,” District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth told CHS about her comments following the rapid shutdown of the Broadway at Madison Whole Foods two weeks ago.

The Broadway closure came as the Amazon-run company said “performance and growth potential” were behind the decision. CHS reported that a massive $173 million real estate deal and a Whole Foods-friendly lease clause were also in play.

The seven-year-old, two-level, 40,000-square-foot grocery at the base of The Danforth luxury apartment building now sits empty, joining the shuttered former Amazon Fresh only a few blocks away on E Pike on Capitol Hill’s sad roster of major empty commercial spaces.

Hollingsworth said she is concerned about the loss.

“Losing a grocery store and a critical food access point is a real blow to our community,” the first-term representative for Capitol Hill and the Central District said on social media following CHS’s report on the Whole Foods shutdown. “We know the remaining three stores on Broadway are also facing challenges. I’ve constantly been elevating these concerns as our grocery stores are not just businesses, they’re lifelines.”

The three groceries Hollingsworth references include two remaining QFCs on Broadway and the 2022-born M2M “urban convenience” concept store from Asian supermarket giant H Mart.

A third QFC is closed and lined up for demolition to make way for a new six-story mixed-use development on 15th Ave E that is unlikely to include a return of a major grocer. The 15th at John Safeway, meanwhile, will eventually be demolished, too, as the company’s property at the corner is redeveloped as two new five-story buildings including a new grocery, around 330 market rate apartment units, some new, smaller retail spaces, and an underground parking lot for more than 300 cars. A Safeway also serves the area at 22nd and Madison.

There are also worries in the Central District where one of three remaining Amazon Fresh-brand supermarkets in the city now holds down the corner where major redevelopment replaced the neighborhood’s Red Apple grocery store. The 2021-opened 23rd and Jackson Amazon Fresh is now one of the last of its kind after the company’s most recent shutdown cut more than 100 jobs in Federal Way.

Grocery delivery revenue, meanwhile, has continued to grow, raising the bar for in-store performance. While Whole Foods is referring shoppers to its other area stores, it is also reminding that customers “can shop Amazon.com/grocery for a broad selection of 3 million grocery and household essentials.”

Hollingsworth, who has been a champion of food security and proponent of Black ownership of farmlands and food-focused businesses, says the grocery issue is a priority in her office and that she is working with city departments and King County to address issues and “explore every avenue to protect and support these essential businesses for our residents.”

For now, it seems unlikely Hollingsworth is looking toward New York for guidance. Among Democratic mayoral primary winner Zohran Mamdani’s proposals for lowering the cost of living in NYC is a promise to cut subsidies to massive grocery chains and redirect the funding to create a network of city-owned grocery stores that will sell at wholesale prices and “operate without a profit motive.”

In Seattle, the grocery chains are currently exempt from the city’s payroll tax on its largest employers.

Grocery access is also a core element of the city’s “Food Action Plan” that Hollingsworth is working to shape and implement though most of the city’s $30 million a year program is already dedicated to programs like Fresh Bucks which provides $40 stipends to income-qualifying residents to spend on fresh produce from participating retailers as well as the framework for the city’s food programs and community P-Patch gardens.

Hollingworth tells CHS she is not currently pursuing any legislation to address the issues, instead focusing on working out better coordination with departments like Public Health and public service departments.

“I don’t have an answer but trying to establish better forms of communication for our grocery stores and city/county departments,” Hollingsworth said.

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