Bi Mart To Open In Puget Sound Area

Predicting the demise of Sears & Kmart since 2017!
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marshd1000
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Bi Mart To Open In Puget Sound Area

Post by marshd1000 »

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Re: Bi Mart To Open In Puget Sound Area

Post by Super S »

55,000 square feet is small for a former Kmart. But those buildings are easily adaptable. Bi-Mart is smart to open around Washington. There are several towns between Vancouver and Olympia which I think would be ideal for their expansion...Woodland, Longview-Kelso, Chehalis (where a Kmart recently closed) just to name a few.

There is something to be said about a smaller chain which tends to stay with the same basic store design and does minimal remodeling, yet continues to open stores.
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Re: Bi Mart To Open In Puget Sound Area

Post by wnetmacman »

Super S wrote: June 3rd, 2018, 10:08 pm 55,000 square feet is small for a former Kmart. But those buildings are easily adaptable. Bi-Mart is smart to open around Washington. There are several towns between Vancouver and Olympia which I think would be ideal for their expansion...Woodland, Longview-Kelso, Chehalis (where a Kmart recently closed) just to name a few.

There is something to be said about a smaller chain which tends to stay with the same basic store design and does minimal remodeling, yet continues to open stores.
Port Orchard was a very late (1987) Group 9 store, so 55,000 isn't too far off in size.
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Re: Bi Mart To Open In Puget Sound Area

Post by marshd1000 »

I wonder if Bi-Mart could work in some of Seattle’s suburbs? What about Shoreline in the closed Sears store? What about Marysville or what about the lower income but gentrifying White Center?
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Re: Bi Mart To Open In Puget Sound Area

Post by Super S »

marshd1000 wrote: June 5th, 2018, 5:50 pm I wonder if Bi-Mart could work in some of Seattle’s suburbs? What about Shoreline in the closed Sears store? What about Marysville or what about the lower income but gentrifying White Center?
Bi-Mart is present in many of Portland's suburbs. While they do often build new stores from the ground up, they do take over existing buildings as well. There is a former PayLess Drug in Vancouver/Orchards, a former marina Safeway on 122nd in Portland, the Beaverton store, and another former PayLess in Aberdeen.

Bi-Mart's main focus has been in Oregon, but in recent years they have been slowly expanding into both Idaho and Washington.
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Re: Bi Mart To Open In Puget Sound Area

Post by Brian Lutz »

Not sure Marysville would be a good fit, they already have 2 Walmarts (1 on Highway 9, 1 on the Tulalip reservation) plus a Fred Meyer and a Target up in Smokey Point. Snohomish might be a better case for something like this, but they have a Fred Meyer and I don't know if they have much in the way of open real estate big enough for something like this. There's a long-vacant former Staples store in Lake Stevens on Highway 9 that might work but it's also right near a Target store.
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Re: Bi Mart To Open In Puget Sound Area

Post by SamSpade »

Maybe somewhere like North Bend?
I think the only large store there is QFC. (Bi-Marts are about the size of an "old days" PayLess / smaller supermarket)
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