Is WinCo bringing a second store to Tacoma? Here’s what city records show
It looks like Tacoma might be getting a second WinCo Foods grocery store.
Permit documents filed with the City of Tacoma and made available via a records request show site development plans for a new WinCo Foods grocery store in Tacoma.
The Boise, Idaho,-based, employee-owned discount grocer already has one Tacoma location, 1913 S. 72nd St, which opened in 2011. It also has locations in Lacey, Puyallup, Sumner and Federal Way, among other places.
The new store, if the plans are followed through, would replace the former Safeway site at 6201 6th Ave., Tacoma in the Highland Hill Shopping Center. The longtime Safeway store at that location closed last year.
Neither WinCo nor officials with Retail Opportunity Investments Corp., which owns the Highland HIll center, responded to requests for comment.
According to Megan Snow, media representative for the city, site development plans were submitted April 9, but a review has not yet started for the project, listed as “WinCo 170-Tacoma” in the city’s permit database.
“The documents submitted do not comply with our document file standards so the applicant was asked to resubmit the files,” Snow told The News Tribune via email in response to questions.
“The permit was submitted on 4/9/2021 and staff notified the applicant of their deficiencies on 4/12/2021, so review has not started.”
A pre-development application was first submitted April 27, 2020, months before Safeway’s closure, and city planning staff met with the applicant last June, according to Snow, with staff comments provided to the project through October 2020.
Among the plans already submitted, city records show a permit was issued in February for a roof repair/replacement at the center following a collapse Dec. 21, which affected the Dollar Tree, adjacent to the former Safeway.
“The plans do include plan sheets for roof demolition and to install a new roof. The note on the parcel regarding the roof collapse would seem to indicate that we would try and prioritize this permit review to help address this,” Snow said via email.
Earlier speculation among nearby residents was that WinCo would site its second Tacoma store at the former Kmart site on Sixth Avenue. That property, though, sold this month and is slated for more than 400 multifamily residential units, according to planning documents submitted to the city.
On a similar timeline, the grocer also has filed plans for a new store in Silverdale at the former Kitsap Mall Sears site, according to the Kitsap Sun.
In February, the grocer opened new stores in Wenatchee and Bend, Oregon.
