Central Market, the long-awaited anchor tenant for the Issaquah Highlands retail area, likely won’t open until spring of 2011, Port Blakely Communities said Wednesday.
Due to the economic downturn, the schedule has been pushed back from the original opening date of the fall of 2010.
“That’s hard for us to say,” said Alan Boeker, president of Port Blakely Communities. “This is a big part of our business.”
Central Market is one of the types of stores owned by Town & Country Markets, founded on Bainbridge Island. The company had been looking at the Issaquah Highlands for many years before announcing their decision to open a store there in July of this year. President Larry Nakata said they’re still very excited about the project.
“To me, it’s just a matter of timing,” Nakata said. “The reality is that things are slowing down, and we do not want to be the only business up on the hill. We think that having the synergy of other businesses will be good for our store.”
Boeker and other Port Blakely officials shared the news at a quarterly meeting of the Issaquah Highlands community.
“I know that has an effect on you all. It definitely has an effect on us,” Boeker said to the residents.
Also because of the economy, Port Blakely was forced to let about eight staff members go, he said.
“This was a difficult week. … What we will be doing in the next 16 to 18 months is to continue doing what we have been doing,” Boeker said. That means continuing to sign leases, process applications and work on other projects such as the proposed Park Pointe agreement between Port Blakely, the city, King County and the owners of the Park Pointe property. That proposal would preserve about 140 acres of open space for the city, and offer further density in the Highlands, among other things.
Boeker said Port Blakely continues to get good support from high quality merchants, such as Central Market, which plans to build a $20 million, 50,000-square-foot store.
“No one wants to be the Lone Ranger. Central Market doesn’t want to open by themselves. … Not only that, but they don’t want to open in a construction zone,” Boeker said.
Officials with the high-end grocery store are hoping they can open in concert with other retailers, he explained.
Port Blakely Vice President of Leasing and Marketing, Genni Reilly, agreed.
“The retailers are looking for critical mass, and that’s what we’re working hard to put together,” Reilly said. “The truth of the matter is the retailers are driven by sales.”
So, in an economic downturn like this one, retailers often end up putting money that had been set aside for capital projects back into more mundane operations. Still, the outlook is good, Reilly said.
“Everybody is very excited about our timeline and very optimistic,” she said. “We have a 14-screen cinema deal and a drugstore that we’re working on, and we hope to be able to announce those by the end of the year. We also have another anchor tenant who is very interested.”
Port Blakely did do some excavation this summer on the grocery store site, which will sit between Northeast Federal Drive, Highlands Drive Northeast, 9th Avenue Northeast and “E” Drive.
“We did that excavation this year because we knew we needed to do it anyway and we had a home for the dirt,” Boeker said, referring to the site for the new Swedish hospital planned to be built in the Highlands. “We won’t start building until they say they’ll open when we finish.”
