South End town hall participants express anger, frustration over Fred Meyer loss
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Fred Meyer’s South End closure sparks community pushback.
- Legislation proposed for longer notice on major store shutdowns.
- Residents raise access, transit and food desert concerns tied to store’s closure.
Emotions were raw at a South End town hall that featured local and state officials on a panel to address the planned closure of the Fred Meyer store at 72nd Street and Pacific Avenue.
“We’re all mad about this,” said state Sen. Steve Conway, who represents the district. “I got a call, but then I was mad. I was mad because why didn’t they give me a call much earlier? Why didn’t they give us a little warning on what they were doing?”
Fred Meyer confirmed the closure plans last month, affecting more than 200 workers.
Conway told the audience Thursday evening at the town hall held at Wane + Flitch that he was working on legislation that would extend the time required for advance notification of a major employer shutdown rather than the two-month notice in place now.
“We will have a conversation in Olympia,” he said. “But let’s get a solution to this. The way they’re doing it now is not right.”
Richard Gardner, who serves on the Tacoma Transportation Commission and lives near the store, noted that transit improvements would have to be made to adjust to where former Fred Meyer customers would have to go.
He also provided some data on the mass transit-dependent use related to the store. For buses in that area, he cited 223 daily boardings and 252 dropoffs, with most of those passengers going to the store.
“My transportation concerns are getting the Fred Meyer customers to places that they can get food if they do not drive,” he said. “There are two, over-55 apartment complexes within a five-minute walk, in addition to the rehabilitation center. And a lot of those folks do not have cars, and they just don’t get counted, or people don’t think about them.”
“And I know people in Parkland that ride the bus or drive this particular Fred Meyer. It is county issue as well as city issue,” he added.
“It’s not just about not being able to buy groceries,” said Andrea Haug, chair of the South End Neighborhood Council who facilitated the meeting. “It is its own subculture, heartbeat and breath.”
Haug read a statement from resident April Smith, who said that as a person living with a disability, the store provided critical access to food and medicine.
“This community cannot wait years for the market to correct itself,” Smith’s statement read.
A current Fred Meyer store employee described customers who had been coming to the store “since they were children,” and lamented the level of crime/shoplifting that had taken hold in the store’s later years, a point other residents also made.
“This store closure (could) have been prevented if the Tacoma mayor, Tacoma City Council and county and state elected officials, Fred Meyer, law enforcement and the community had joined together to solve this problem ... .”
Food deserts
Michael Hines, president of Local UFCW 367, which represents workers at the store, said workers are being reassigned to other stores, but “obviously there’s a domino effect. People end up displaced. You can’t just shut down a store of 200 members and then put them in other stores and not have some kind of a domino effect.”
He suggested the state look into incentives to attract more grocers.
“We need to incentivize grocery workers to move in and take away the food deserts, because we have them everywhere,” he said. “We have them in Fife, the Hilltop, the East Side, the South End, all over Pierce County. Stores are disappearing. So I would like to see legislation that incentivizes the companies to move in, whether it’s tax breaks or what have you .... so that they stay and they don’t pick up and leave like they’re doing now.”
“And as a union president, union friendly language would be nice to have as well,” he added.
Other participants included Sue Potter, CEO of Nourish Pierce County, Chantell Harmon Reed, director of public health for Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, Tacoma City Council members Joe Bushnell and Olgy Diaz and Pierce County Council member Bryan Yambe.
Diaz echoed Hines’ sentiments about the food deserts in Pierce County.
“The East Side has been crying out for a grocery store for as long as I can remember, at least 15 years. Downtown Tacoma has an increased density that’s going on. Lots of folks are going to UWT now, they need a grocery store,” Diaz said. “And I think the city could potentially fill that gap if we can get some help from the state.”
‘The decision has been made’
Bushnell, who on Wednesday issued a lengthy update on what steps the city is taking amid the closure, said Thursday evening that the city was not waiting around to take action, pointing to discussions already taking place among key stakeholders.
“I think about public safety like a pie,” he told the crowd. “So accountability, (police) officers are certainly a part of that, but there’s economic development that needs to happen as well. And then there’s the community part of it. And then there is finding ways to make sure that people have great things that they can do safely in our community.”
Others said the conversation needed to start with Fred Meyer and getting to the core reasons they pulled out.
“That, to me, is the first discussion that we need to have see if we can save this thing,” said one resident.
“I asked that same question you have,” Conway said. “Can we do something to keep you here?”
He said the only answer that came from the regional director: “The decision has been made.”
Diaz emphasized the situation as a pivotal point for the neighborhood.
“We have to start knowing each other, start meeting each other,” she said. “I think this is how we get this critical moment and use it to launch us into the next steps and where we go next.”
She added, “quite frankly, come at us with both the ideas and the anger. It’s all justified and it’s all needed.”
This story was originally published August 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
