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That’s the 2018 price, by the way
Company officials say “performance and growth potential” are behind the planned closure of the Broadway Whole Foods grocery store.
“Like any business, we regularly evaluate the performance and growth potential of each of our stores and make decisions to position the company for long-term success,” a Whole Foods spokesperson told CHS Saturday morning.
The company says “all team members will transfer to roles” at other area Whole Foods Market locations. The final day of business is planned for June 20th. Clearance sales begin now.
“Our stores remain an important part of our growth strategy, and we currently have more than 100 new stores in the pipeline and continuously explore new sites,” the spokesperson for the Amazon-owned grocery giant said.
UPDATE: Amazon’s exit coincides with the sale of The Danforth development. Bellevue-based property management firm Kennedy Wilson announced the $173 million acquisition of the apartment tower headed into the weekend. The property had been acquired by seller Vanbarton Group for $209 million in 2019. Amazon apparently decided to seize the opportunity to exit its lease.
CHS reported here on the October 2018 debut of the much anticipated two-level, 40,000-square-foot addition to the Capitol Hill-area grocery scene.
The new supermarket at the base of The Danforth, a 17-story luxury apartment building that opened that summer, was in the works as Amazon acquired the grocery company and came as Whole Foods officials said the First Hill Streetcar line and proximity to First Hill’s hospitals and nearby Seattle University were important factors in choosing the Broadway and Madison location as was the coming RapidRide G transformation of Madison that opened in September.
Eight years later, the investment has not paid off.
The change will be especially painful for First Hill residents losing walking and transit access to a major grocery store. The Harvard Market QFC a few blocks away and downhill at Broadway and Pike will now be the closest large grocery option.
The area has also been at the center of a growing public safety debate with plans for a county mental health crisis center across the Madison-Broadway intersection.
The closure is only the latest change in Capitol Hill and Central Seattle’s shifting grocery economy, The core remains in place — for now. Following last year’s pullback from a $25 billion Albertsons-Kroger merger, Capitol Hill still has two QFCs and two Safeways. 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 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.
The industry’s approach to customer relations here has also shifted as the companies have implemented changes like closed-off exits and mandatory receipt checks to deter theft and crime in the stores.
Smaller, nimble players have joined the mix including H-Mart’s “urban convenience” concept M2M which opened above busy Capitol Hill Station in 2022 while the neighborhood’s Trader Joe’s remains bustling and the Central Co-op has been doing business here for 45 years.
Meanwhile, grocery delivery revenue 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.”
Word of the Broadway Whole Foods closure spread quickly Friday as employees were officially notified of the change and shoppers shared the news on social media. “You guys, why is Whole Foods on Madison & Broadway closing down?,” a post in the CHS Facebook Group asked Friday morning. Speculation, lamentation, and criticism over the store’s layout and Amazon ownership spread quickly.
The Danforth’s new 40,000-square-foot hole in the commercial real estate market will make the second major Amazon-shaped gap in the area. The boarded-up 8,000-square-foot E Pike grocery formerly home to Amazon Fresh has remained empty since its equally abrupt April 2024 closure after four years of business on the block.
There are other major gaps to fill including spaces left empty by tumult in the drugstore industry as the major chains have filed for bankruptcy to settle federal and state opioid lawsuits.
With Capitol Hill’s densely packed population of active consumers, there is always hope of change and renewal. Friday, the E Olive Way building that has been left empty and boarded-up by the exit of coffee giant Starbucks over purported public safety concerns three years ago leapt back into motion as the home for a new All the Best pet care and supply shop.
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This is more than disappointing. The staff at this store are always helpful and friendly, prices and quality are better than QFC, and I always felt safer than going to QFC. The lack of competition will drive prices even higher at QFC, and shoppers will have to navigate the omnipresent sketchy behavior outside QFC entrances. But hey, at least Amazon execs can make more money.
Two Safeways on Capitol Hill? Since the Safeway on Broadway closed I only know 14th & John. Where is the other?
Madison is the other
They are probably counting the one at Madison & 22nd, which technically is on the edge of the CD, but we (I live nearby) have always been treated as part of various neighbors (Madison Valley, Capitol Hill, Miller) when it suits the entity speaking.
He’s probably referring to the one on Madison and 23rd.
Madison
The new RapidRide G bus can take a person from just about where the Broadway Whole Foods is now to the Safeway at 22nd and Madison in less than 10 minutes. Even faster, it also stops by Central Co-op and Trader Joe’s.
If a bustling store in a high-density neighborhood full of high-income people doesn’t look good in your analysis of “performance and growth potential” maybe you just shouldn’t be in the grocery store business…
Well, what can one expect from a company that financially supports today’s military parade in DC…they obviously have their very own set of “priorities.”
so they’re closing to spite seattle?
This seems weird. I am quite sure that the people who run WFM and Amazon understand ‘performance and growth potential,’ and if the economics were there for this store they’d keep it open. They’re not closing it because Trump told them to or something.
Nothing they do is truly in service to the populace, only to the shareholders and aims of the oligarchy. Businesses are simply a means to greater wealth and control.
Let me know when and where having the Politburo control the means of production works out better.
Since you are a grocery business whiz, I suggest that you take over the space that whole foods is leaving and run your own grocery store. I’m sure that prices will be low, service will be great and the quality impeccable. By the way, grocery stores typically run on a 1% to 2% net margin. Good luck
the margins are much higher now
?
Good way for Amazon to drive up delivery business.
*DING*
I’ve only ever gone there for unscented bath soap, ever since QFC stopped carrying anything without industrial perfumes. *sigh* the search resumes…
TJ’s sells unscented soap.
Yeah – TJ’s Oatmeal and Honey bar soap is actually really nice and it’s not expensive either.
Central Coop for sure has it.
It seems like so many of us forget that many of these Amazon employees who make these decisions live in our neighborhood and are actually the reason our prices continue to rise on a rents.
If you have a friend that works at Amazon why are you still friends? Working for evil is never sexy.
setting neighbors against each other is also never sexy.
bcfls, couldn’t agree more. If you dig enough, you can find faults with every business and every job. Doesn’t give us the right to tell people to quit
I once had someone say we were moving too slow while moving her furniture. Do understand. We were both Marines from legendary 2/7 weapons company dragon plt.
We not only carried the 65 lb. ALICE,,,But another 8 lbs. ammo, water, gas, medical gear. AND a 30LB. anti tank missile everywhere we went. 25 K on one hump.
I looked at her with her overstuffed over my head. “Take this chair and run with it.” and held it out for her to take. I said “Oh? Naw?” “Okay…Well grab something lighter and run.” and walked away. We would have left right there. But her stuff was still on the truck. We took our time from there. Just so she knew the difference. Prolly cost her about $250 for that comment.
Yeah!
I just ordered even more from Amazon Prime in response to this
How petty of a person are you to end a friendship with someone because they work at Amazon? If one of my friends got a job with Amazon corporate after being unemployed because of a layoff, I wouldn’t end that friendship. They’re just trying to keep the roof on their head and make a living. It’s not like they’re working for the Heritage Foundation or Liberty University, which would definitely make me rethink my relationship with them.
My spidey sense tells me Serra might rather work for no one and collect a govt check rather than work. For evil, of course
The way your name is spelled, is 100% not sexy.
they are only working for a paycheck!
Seriously? My baby cousins I baby sat are Amazon. Live in a tower.
The grocery options for such a large dense neighborhood are a joke now. There is just qfc if you live in the south end of the hill or First Hill. The TJ’s and Safeways are not super close for those who have limited mobility.
So now we also have 2 large gluts of more blight and empty real estate thanks to the retail magnate genius from South Lake Union.
or out of control disorder in the public sphere?
The SLC whole foods is accessible either via the 8, SLUT, 40, C or whatever buses you can catch.
Seems like you skipped a key detail in that the parking access for this location has always been really bad (steep blind ramp) and can only be accessed from a street that is difficult to get to. And with Madison being torn up for the past two years, people who are driving are not going to pick coming here over other stores. It is sad but not really that surprising.
These are all excellent points. So much nuance and context gets lost in emotional or overly broad statements like some that came before yours.
Trader Joes makes it work, also on Madison and with an even worse parking garage.
It is not the slope of the parking ramp. It is not construction. It is not the store layout.
It is the huge crisis care center that will be dumped on their doorstep!
Of course Seattle progressives will look for every other possible excuse.
What a shame. I LOVED this Whole Foods. It was this store that made me a regular.
It was small enough and human-scaled that you could easily walk through it and see what good deals they had that week.
I am curious: anyone know why this store seemed to attract so many friendly trans cashiers? Coming to that inclusive-feeling environment was always a bright spot of my week.
King County and Seattle plan to put a giant regional crisis care center that is as large as the grocery store one block away. This is in addition to all the housing first projects that have been concentrated here since 2020. They will send drug addicts in psychosis from across the region and beyond to Capitol Hill to this facility and then release them onto Capitol Hill’s streets within 24 hours. The amount of drug addicts and dealers on Broadway will explode. If this isn’t stopped, it is obvious that the concentration of services for drug addicts and mentally ill homeless people will turn this area into Seattle’s version of the Tenderloin. Lack of future growth potential is an understatement! This facility is an existential threat to Capitol Hill/First Hill. The first dominos are already falling.
I fear this may be true. I have wondered for the past few years how high-end Whole Foods and the neighboring dicey housing first buildings were coexisting. Do people think housing first is working?
Glad I live in Ballard!
Yup, no one in crisis over in Ballard!
As someone who lives and works in Cap Hill, I understand the frustration. But homeless people are people and our neighbors too.
What is your idea of a solution to the issue? Just move them geographically out of sight? Services and homes for the homeless, as well as the homeless themselves, need to go somewhere.
The main predictor of homelessness rates is the ratio between median local income and median local rents. Maybe if we are all worried about how homelessness is impacting the experience of living in Cap Hill, we need to think about how to raise incomes or lower rents, or both. Otherwise we will be stuck in a never ending cycle of attempting to just hide a recurring problem.
The issue is that they are being moved from other places across the region and beyond to Capitol Hill. The street homeless on Capitol Hill did not fall into homelessness on Capitol Hill due to high rent. They are here because of drug addiction and mental health issues. This crisis care center will supercharge the cycle and this neighborhood will collapse under the weight of concentrated services like the Tenderloin in San Francisco and E Hastings In Vancouver. It makes no sense to locate this facility in a dense, still vibrant area that is also the historic gay neighborhood. It should be located where the negative externalities will be the least, which is definitely not here. The closing of Whole Foods and Red Hook are the first signs of the collapse under the weight of concentrated services. Small, independent businesses will follow. It is not an issue of compassion or nimbyism. It is about common sense. Seattle and King County don’t seem to any common sense.
The closing of a store like this wasn’t sudden and appears to have had everything to do with the building owner’s lease situation which Amazon was undoubtedly more aware of than we were.
What it doesn’t appear to have anything to do with is new services that might be opening up down the block. That’s just right wing fantasy. There is literally 0 evidence these two things have anything to do with one another or that a major corporation would decide to close a location that fast or that they would close because something else may or may not be built nearby. The fact is, while convenient for some, the overpriced store clearly belongs about a mile to the north where more of its target clientele live and it can build a facility with better parking that will accommodate all those range rovers.
Also, you should build the services where the junkies are going to use them not in some other neighborhood and according to the non-stop bleating of right wingers on this blog, Cap Hill is perfect because it’s apparently an unlivable, crime-ridden hellhole filled with nothing but junkies and antifa and the cops are just overburdened (but still somehow have time to try and gentrify Denny Blaine Park for rich stuck up white people).
Very well said!
Prosecute them for public urination, public drug use, theft, vandalism, assault.
Confine them into a facility that is adequately funded and staffed, and treat their issues.
If they refuse treatment, or are adjudicated mentally ill to the point they cannot function within society, send them to a properly funded mental health facility where they can be treated for their illness/addiction and not be a danger/burden to society, or die in the cold.
But, I don’t see that happening in this town.
The state has lost its collective mind, and the citizens are suffering.
-Another high-earner who is leaving his home because it has been turned to shit. Thanks for nothing, you idiots.
Don’t you get it? They are being robbed left and right. How many Whole Foods are closing in Kirkland or Bellevue?
I’m surprised this has been the only commenter pointing out the theft. I worked at this store for 2 years spanning the pandemic, and here’s some facts the public would find helpful to why this closure is happening.
1) The Madison/Broadway store needed to make $110,000 per day just to break even, but they averaged $80,000; 2) Because city of Seattle/state of Washington do not allow people walking out with merchandise not paid for to be touched or restrained in any way, and Whole Foods tells employees at hiring that they will be immediately fired if they try to stop shoplifters, theft up to $20,000 a day was the norm: 3) Before they were arrested in 2023, one of the many organized theft rings regularly had two O’Dea students load shopping carts with thousands of dollars worth of liquor and wine on the 2nd floor, pretend to take the shopping cart down to the 1st floor while actually taking the stolen goods down to the parking level and driving away while the store “security guard” with absolutely zero authority and instructions not to touch nor restrain/block exits could only watch them; 4) Seattle police do absolutely nothing to make that surrounding neighborhood safe for employees to walk to & from the store.Remember, while you customers might shop in the middle of the day/just after work, we employees had to either open or close, and 5:30am or 10:30pm are not times anyone wants to be unless your safely inside a car. Bottom line for us—-demoralizing when you try to make keep your particular department fully stocked but the shoplifters actually laugh as they carry out the product you just brought out.
I wonder if “growth potential” is the driver here and they determined that a mental health crisis center across the street would depress business and create new shrinkage and employee safety concerns.
Shout out to the Coop! Has been on the hill long before Whole Foods and has the inventory people might miss when WF shuts down
So right
Sad to hear, but I also found the store layout awkward, with too much empty space that made shopping harder. Closing the Madison entrance probably didn’t help, since it cut off easy access for nearby workers. The same thing is happening in West Seattle. It feels like Amazon is intentionally driving customers away to cut costs and get out of unwanted leases.
I feel sorry for the medical professionals who went there for lunch and to pick up dinner
This absolutely sux. The cap hill mdownward spiral is going to be hard to reverse :(
Maybe rents will finally go down
This is not performance based this is Union based.
Can we start listing rents in the reporting of closures? The Whole Foods was pretty big – 2 stories – and in a luxury space. I can’t imagine that the rent was cheap.
It reminds me of the Reddit post about the closure of Brewpub partially triggered by $50k/month rent.
We don’t talk enough about how greedy the landlords – particularly the corporate landlords – have been getting in this city.
With Amazon’s enshittification and cutting prices at Whole Foods, I wonder how much of a profit spread was left.
“we” :)
Well…this was more of a statement to the larger reporting media. I think that we have not seen much reporting on commercial rent and how that is also driving closures and inflation so businesses have to make the rent ends meet.
You’re being cute about it but honestly if you know this info it is helpful to illustrate a number of closures are due in part to enormous rents, and not “rampant” crime etc all landlords and right wingers want to claim.
are you arguing that the corporate landlord was charging amazon too much here? or amazon was lowering prices too much? i’m confused on who i should be mad at
As a disabled person who relied heavily on the market due to it’s proximity, I thank you for the heads up. I would have otherwise made a difficult and disappointing trip just to find this out.
Rapidride G line gets you from First Hill to 22nd in like 5 minutes. (Or 15 if the bus has to wait for the interminable light at Madison and 13th)
Store was already closed up when I went by this morning (June 17)