Grocery store planned for the Upper Su

MAT-SU — Years-old rumors of a new grocery store rising on land bordering the Parks Highway near the Talkeetna Spur were confirmed this week by two Palmer residents who are opening an independent supermarket. D&A Shoprite employees Greg and Lisa Pearson are moving forward with plans to build their own 14,274-square-foot market.

While the area is dotted with small convenience and grocery stores, one nearby store may face especially serious competition. Many business owners in the area say they welcome a local store that will have fresh meat and produce at competitive prices in an area where a bell pepper can cost more than $4 and a round steak can cost more than filet mignon sold in Wasilla markets.

“I don’t want to be the Wal -Mart of the world and put people out of business,” said Greg Pearson, who owns six just-cleared acres near Mile 98.4 of the Parks Highway. Pearson said he hopes to find ways to enhance neighboring businesses, not hurt them.

The Pearsons also hope to attract as a tenant the Sunshine branch of Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union, which now is quartered nearby on the spur road. They have also talked to other retailers about opening stores on the land, which will feature at first a gravel parking lot.

The new store, Cubby’s Marketplace, will be the only supermarket for more than 40 miles between Talkeetna and the Wasilla/Big Lake area offering a large variety of food, dry goods and fresh produce, Greg Pearson said. He expects to create 15 to 20 part- and full-time jobs when the business opens in April or May 2008.

Pearson, 45, moved to Palmer when he was 13 and began working for the D&A Market a year later. Except for two years in college he has worked in the retail business all of his life. Opening their own store is a big step for the couple and success is not guaranteed.

“I’m going to do my best to keep my prices as low as I possibly can,” Greg Pearson said. “But it’s all predicated on my overhead and what it costs to build this thing.”

Small pond, large ripples

There are two stores offering groceries in Trapper Creek, about 15 miles north of the new store, two stores in downtown Talkeetna 14 miles down the spur and one business known as The Store that is near Mile 98.

The Store owner Jack Ince faces the stiffest competition due to his proximity to the larger store —less than half a mile. His wife, Lou, runs a popular bakery next door.

If he’s nervous, Ince is not letting on.

His prices on some items “are less expensive than what they’ve got in Wasilla,” said Ince, a 17-year member of the Y Community Council, the area’s advisory board to the Borough Assembly.

The Store is a homey place with a community bulletin board and a list of prices for meats and produce written in dry-erase marker on a white board. From produce to frozen meats and eggs, dairy to sundries and even some toys, The Store is fully stocked.

Ince said some locals have expressed dismay that the Pearsons cleared trees without offering people who needed wood a chance to clear it out for them — which he said might have been a nice gesture to the community.

As for the potential competition’s plans, Ince said he doesn’t know. “They Ann’s said nothing to me, and if they do, I’ll ask questions.”

Until then, Ince is planning for the future and talking turkey — Thanksgiving turkeys. He’s recently ordered them at a competitive 69 cents per pound and expects to sell plenty of them. He shows no sign of planning to fail in the face of new competition.

Talkeetna merchant Be Tanner of Tanner’s Trading Post said she welcomes the new market, which will offer products her store does not, such as fresh meat and a variety of produce.

“We’ve got a lot of people up the tracks,” she said. “We have a lot of loyal customers. … I don’t see [the new store] as a threat at all.”

There could even be benefits, she said. “I think we’re going to compliment one another. I think it’s a really positive business venture.”

Tanner has had years to think about possible impacts from a new store, and although she expects it to affect her business some, she said she isn’t worried. People living off the grid and up the railroad tracks from Talkeetna will still come to downtown Talkeetna businesses to shop. If she could order her store’s groceries from the same source Shoprite and Cubby’s uses in bulk, there might even be a price benefit to that kind of a partnership, she said.

Tanner also has a coffee business that brings in revenue attached to her store, and a laundromat.

Across Main Street stands the venerable Nagley’s Store, which is attached to the West Rib Cafe and Pub and also has the town’s only liquor store.

The Trapper Creek Trading Post features a breakfast and lunch menu as well as groceries, lodging and a gas station. It is a favorite local hangout — particularly on cold winter afternoons.

Talkeetna Chamber of Commerce President LouAnn Carrol-Tysdal said the chamber gets a lot of its food for Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets from Pearson, who she calls “a very nice, wonderful person. We’ve been totally impressed.”

Local stores will find their niches and the new store will serve “a different market,” she said. “Nobody’s going to drive out there to get an ice cream cone or a bag of salt.”

Complexities of starting from scratch

After nearly a lifetime in the grocery business, nothing readied Pearson for the challenges of opening a new grocery store once Small Business Administration and commercial property rules came into play.

“I had no idea it opened up this big a can of worms,” Pearson said. Months have been spent grappling with the ratio of floor space versus storage space, types of air exchange systems and where driveways can go. The state Department of Transportation gave him one driveway instead of the requested two and won’t lower the highway’s speed limit despite the presence of Su Valley High School next door, and a nearby Tesoro gas station and Talkeetna Spur intersection.

He wanted to save as many trees as possible, but the grandest of all were either in the middle of the lot, the driveway or the store. He insisted on saving trees near the highway and plans to plant more native trees on the property.

The structure itself will not be an architectural work of art, but he wants the front to eventually look as nice as possible. For now, the big push is to get the metal building erected by the end of October so inside work can progress.

“I’ve got cost overruns even as I speak” he said.

Greg Pearson said the store plans to offer a variety of produce, including organic produce, and whatever kinds of goods the community needs. As far as varieties of canned goods, such as tomatoes, he plans to have a house brand and offer one other choice of product. Even with an 8,500-square-foot sales floor he expects space to be tight. There will be a meat department with a butcher to cut meat. He will also offer a fish packing and freezing service he expects will be used by tourists.

By pairing his orders with Shoprite’s orders, both stores can order in greater quantities, the larger volume meaning greater savings, Greg Pearson said. He is concentrating on getting the business built while wife Lisa is doing the brunt of management at Shoprite in Wasilla.

The couple plans to move to the Talkeetna area, Lisa Pearson said, but after their daughter — the couple’s last in high school — graduates from Colony High School. She said all three of their children like Talkeetna and she hopes to find enough land to split it off eventually among the kids. Renting may be another option until they find the perfect property.

There was some debate about the store’s name, such as “G&L Marketplace” for Greg and Lisa’s, she said, but “Cubby’s” had a bearish theme that lent itself to a logo, which seemed to fit with Alaska.

That, and her husband plays softball for the Cubs, a close-knit team that came in second in Talkeetna’s Moose Dropping Festival tournament in July and last week in Anchorage won first place in the state.

Contact John R. Moses at 352-2270 or e-mail john.moses@frontiersman.com.