Work begins on new, larger Fred Meyer in Palmer

WASILLA — Some preparation and land clearing began this week at the former site of the Pioneer Plaza mall and the future site of new Palmer Fred Meyer store, city officials said.

The company has obtained all the necessary permitting for construction to begin, and the site work going on is preliminary, said Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson on Monday.

“I don’t know that it would be considered an official ground breaking,” she said.

Plans to construct a new, larger Fred Meyer store around the main downtown intersection in Palmer have been in the works since July 2014. The former mall site had been empty since 2010, when the Carrs store moved across the street to its present location south of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. The new store will cost about $22 million to build, Johnson said.

Company officials did not return calls seeking comment.

The move would leave vacant for now the 56,000-square-foot building Fred Meyer currently occupies. Company officials have not told city officials about their plans for the current site, though they’ve said in the past the company would sell the current real estate. A third large grocery store likely isn’t in the cards, Johnson said.

“What I do know is that they were not wanting to have a tenant that will be in direct competition with them, not a drug store or a grocery store,” she said.

The new store will be 123,000 square feet, according to Johnson. That doubles the existing footage, but is still smaller than the chain’s roughly 170,000-square-foot location in Wasilla. City officials have said the new store will include expanded organic and natural offerings, as well as more apparel and home merchandise than is offered at the existing Fred Meyer “Marketplace” store.

City officials are hoping — they don’t have exact numbers yet — the number of jobs provided will also increase, Johnson said.

“I think it would be reasonable that we would see a doubling of the number of jobs there, too,” she said.

City officials are excited that a bigger store with expanded shopping options could mean more sales tax revenue, Johnson said.

“I’m looking forward to being able to shop in our town,” she said. “All the people that live in Palmer and go to Wasilla to spend their tax money will be able to stay in Palmer, so that’s very exciting.”

Fred Meyer is a Pacific Northwest regional grocer and retail outlet store owned by Cincinnati-headquartered grocery giant Kroger, Inc., which is the second largest retail organization in America after Wal-Mart, according to the National Retail Federation web site.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.