Organic grocery chain to open 1st Tri-Cities store. It’s now hiring
Natural Grocers Inc., a Lakewood, Colo.-based natural food chain, will open its first Tri-City location at the former JoAnn Fabric & Craft store.
Natural Grocers is a $1.1 billion specialty retailer focused on natural and organic groceries, body care and dietary supplement products.
The Kennewick store at 751 N. Columbia Center Blvd., will open in August, a spokesperson said. It will employ 16 workers.
The company operates 166 stores in 21 states and boasts about 2 million members. Each store stocks an average of 21,000 products.
The company posted job openings for the Kennewick store to Indeed with wages of $17-$21 per hour. Job listings included a dairy/frozen manager, nutritional health coach, produce manager, produce assistant, head cashier, cashier and temporary cashier.
Kennewick is one of five stores expected to open in 2023. It has four Washington locations, two each in Vancouver and Spokane. It has 14 in Oregon and five in Idaho.
The company said Kennewick was the perfect place to bridge the gap between Vancouver and Spokane.
“Natural Grocers is thrilled to be opening a new location in Kennewick,” it said, noting it entered the state in 2014.
Each store costs an average of $2.4 million to open, with a five-year expected return on investment.
The 16,200-square-foot Kennewick location is undergoing an $812,000 renovation to convert it into a grocery, according to building permit application submitted to the city of Kennewick in late 2022.
BCCM Construction Group of Kansas City is the contractor.
It is taking over space vacated by JoAnn Fabric & Craft Store, which is relocating to a new store being built in space left when Sears closed its Columbia Center store.
Go to naturalgrocers.com
This story was originally published May 23, 2023 at 5:00 AM.