Sifton Market, on Fourth Plain Boulevard, has been closed since last January, when it was heavily damaged by an intentionally set fire. Owner Tom Ranck said he’s eager for construction to begin rebuilding the store. Alisha Jucevic/The Columbian Photo Gallery
By the time you read this, construction of a new Sifton Market may be underway at 13412 N.E. Fourth Plain Blvd.
It’ll be a relief to Thomas Ranck, owner of the property and the business, who said he’s been eager to rebuild — and restore the unique sense of community that surrounded Sifton Market — since early last year. Ranck had hoped to declare his store rebuilt and reopened for business last month, he said, but the pace of the county building permit process hasn’t quite matched his dreams.
Sifton Market was destroyed and the store manager was killed on Jan. 15, 2017. According to court documents, frequent customer Mitchell Heng entered the store in the early morning and robbed store manager Amy Hooser of $80 and a carton of cigarettes. Then he allegedly started a fire.
Heng has refused to say what happened to Hooser, who was last seen on a surveillance video walking toward the rear of the store, followed by Heng. Investigators have said Hooser died of blunt force trauma as well as smoke inhalation. Heng has been charged with first-degree murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree arson. He is scheduled to go to trial in April.
The fire ruined the entire strip mall, which also housed a barber shop, a pet supply store and a pet grooming business. All of those businesses have since moved to other sites, or just closed. The remains of the building were demolished last spring. Since then, Ranck said he’s been waiting for the county to come through with new building permits.
His new store will “have a fresh new modern look,” Ranck said. “It won’t be completely different but it’ll have an angled front” that will be more convenient for cars pulling in and out, he said. “There will be two rental spaces beside the store, instead of the three we had before.”
If all goes well, Ranck said, the store will be open for business by early spring. His contractor, Jim Pidgeon Enterprises of West Hazel Dell, has told him construction should take no longer than three months, he said.
“We’re ready to start building right now,” he said in early January. “I hope people will see work underway within a couple of weeks.”
Lure of lunch
Ranck and his late wife, Melanie, bought the Sifton Stop ‘n’ Shop business in 1986. Ranck said he believes a neighborhood store has been on this spot since the 1920s or 1930s. It was rebuilt several times, he said.
When he and Melanie bought the business, he said, it became a place where contractors and construction workers, who were getting busy building up what was then the remote east county countryside between Vancouver and Camas, could stop by for fresh food.
“I served so many contractors sack lunches,” Ranck said. “Back in the day there wasn’t that much of a deli presence east of Interstate 205. It became a good spot for people to get nice, fresh sandwiches and soups and pizzas. All the old-timers knew it.
“There was literally a generation that grew up there. I can remember small children coming in with their parents in 1986, and I saw them as adults coming in with their own kids,” he said.
Now, he said, he’s disappointed that taggers and vandals have targeted the fenced-off property. That’s another reason why he’s eager to start rebuilding, he said.
“Hopefully the community will embrace the store as they did when my wife and I ran it for 30 years,” he said. The couple sold the business when Melanie Ranck got sick in 2008. She died in 2010 and, after a few years “sitting around,” Ranck said, he felt ready to buy it back and rename it Sifton Market. That happened in summer 2016. The fire occurred just a few months later.
A banner has been on display on the fence surrounding the site that memorializes store manager Hooser, the single mother of three daughters. An online fundraiser has helped amass college funds for them, her mother said last spring.
“Everything’s unfortunate about what happened,” Ranck said. “I don’t think I’ve quite recovered. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from the loss of life that occurred.”
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