When Albertsons closed its grocery store on Vancouver’s Fourth Plain Boulevard in February, analysts expected the space to stay vacant for a long time.
Nearly a year later, those predictions appear to have proven accurate. Even as other stores in the same shopping plaza have opened since then, the 52,600-square-foot anchor space remains hollow, its windows covered. Remnants of the Albertsons logo have been scrubbed from the front of the building in the city’s Bagley Downs neighborhood.
Like many major departures, the grocery store’s closure spurred a ripple effect that neighboring businesses are still feeling. Among them is ReTails, a full-service thrift store that opened there in September.
“We run our business as we planned,” said Linda Meyers, a manager at the store, which is owned by the Humane Society for Southwest Washington. “We were just hoping for a larger growth in a shorter amount of time.”
Albertsons closed its store at 5000 E. Fourth Plain Blvd. at the same time it shuttered another location at 8300 N.E. 137th Ave. That left the Idaho-based chain with just two Clark County locations: one in Salmon Creek and one in Battle Ground.
The Fourth Plain plaza, owned by ROIC Washington LLC, hasn’t been entirely quiet since Albertsons’ departure. One space received a permit for $50,000 in repairs and improvements, according to county records. New businesses have opened.
But losing an anchor grocery store undeniably reduces the overall traffic to the entire plaza, Meyers said.
“Obviously, with that closed down, the whole unit closed down,” she said. “Each little store kind of draws its own traffic.”
Family Pet Supplies, a specialty pet store in the same plaza that opened last year, reported a similarly slow start. Though both businesses opened after Albertsons had closed, both said they were unaware of the impending departure when they signed their leases.
Meyers said she’d love to see another grocery store or another business move into the anchor space to boost the area. But ReTails is happy with the location despite the turnover next door, she said.
Clark County has seen several stubborn vacancies in large retail spaces in recent years as some business look to shrink their size. Lingering lease agreements, demographics and other factors can complicate the process of filling them, said Pam Lindloff, associate vice president for NAI Norris Beggs and Simpson, a real estate firm with offices in Vancouver.
“The pool of tenants that can occupy that size space has reduced dramatically,” Lindloff said.
In Hazel Dell, a former Albertsons store stood vacant for more than six years. The location eventually became a Grocery Outlet that opened in early 2013. Lindloff said she “absolutely” expects the vacant Fourth Plain site will stay that way for a long time.
For residents of Bagley Downs, Albertsons wasn’t the only grocery store in the neighborhood. A nearby Grocery Outlet has operated just to the east on Fourth Plain for years.
