Metropolitan Market, grocery shoppers’ Valhalla, to open here in Spring
The long-awaited opening of a new grocery store in Gig Harbor is just on the horizon. Metropolitan Market has announced that it will open a store in the Uptown area in the summer of 2021.
The store will be at 5010 Point Fosdick Drive in Harbor Plaza, formerly home to the Main & Vine, an experimental grocery store operated by Kroger that closed in 2018.
“We are absolutely thrilled to be joining the Gig Harbor community, and we look forward to meeting our new neighbors soon,” Metropolitan Market CEO Ron Megahan said in a press release Nov. 6.
Metropolitan Market, formerly known as Queen Anne Thriftway, is a high-end grocery chain based in Seattle. It has a store in Tacoma’s Proctor District which has proven popular with young urban shoppers.
The Proctor store is know for its decadent bakery offerings. There is also a floral shop, seafood department, locally sourced cafe, cheese department, butcher shop, kitchenware and a variety of made-to-order selections.
Cameron Ito, marketing director for the company, said in an email to The Gateway that “team members will be hired locally” and that there are plans for a job fair though “no date is set at this time.”
Ito also said “there will be changes to the exterior as well as interior renovations” to the building.
Of the construction, Gig Harbor Mayor Kit Kuhn said “we hope that they’ll be completed sometime this winter.”
The actual opening date has yet to be set, the company said.
“I think it’s going to fill a need that people have. I think there is actually room for even more. We have a lot of citizens that have wanted a higher scale grocery store,” Kuhn said. “Main and Vine that was there before, a lot of people really enjoyed it.”
That potential for “even more” is in reference to what could be a second retailer that could “go into the remaining 5,711-square foot section of the shopping center.”
Kuhn also said he hopes the new local store will save interested customers a longer commute to the Proctor store.
“I think It’s going to aid a lot of people that had to go across the bridge to the Metropolitan,” Kuhn said. “I think that’s one thing Metropolitan found out is that a good amount of their clients that were over in Proctor were coming from Gig Harbor. It’s definitely a niche that needed to be filled.”
City Administrator Bob Larson said he anticipates the new store will help other businesses nearby.
“Having that back there will help the other businesses as well that are in that immediate area,” Larson said. “Getting that anchor back will help that entire southwest corner of the Point Fosdick road up there.” Kuhn also said he thinks the city will “keep some of the sales tax revenue versus maybe across the bridge.”
Katrina Knutson, Community Development Director at the City of Gig Harbor, said these renovations are underway as “the store is currently under construction via approved minor site plan, design review and tenant improvement applications.”
Knutson said they are “pleased to be adding Metropolitan Market to its list of grocer options in Gig Harbor.” She said her staff worked with the store to speed up the review process.
The proposal for the store was first laid out in September of 2019 and a permit was issued on May 11 of this year to “upgrade the existing shell of the space.”
The store will now be the ninth location for the company, which has stores from West Seattle to Tacoma.
Gig Harbor shoppers are still waiting for two other shoes to drop: Town & County is looking at a downtown site for its own high-end store, and the developers of Harbor Hill in the city’s north end are still looking for a tenant for a planned supermarket there. Town & Country had originally intended to go into Harbor Hill, but a long delay caused by the developer’s dispute with the city caused them to drop the plan.
That suit was settled in August, and a spokesman for the Olympic Property Group, told The Gateway then that he was looking for a new grocer.
Update: The headline of this story has been updated from its printed version.
Reach Chase Hutchinson at chase.hutchinson@thenewstribune.com
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 5:30 AM.
