http://www.oregonlive.com/business/i...re_in_por.html
Uwajimaya may put store in Portland's Old Town/Chinatown
by Laura Gunderson, The Oregonian
Tuesday July 01, 2008, 8:04 AM
Prospects of an Asian superstore generates excitement among neighbors and business leaders
Uwajimaya Inc., a Seattle-based group of Asian superstores famous for crammed shelves of produce, seafood, delicacies and sundries, is considering a new apt outpost in Portland's new Chinatown/Japantown Historic District.
Combined with office and educational developments in the neighborhood, a Uwajimaya store would add a retail destination of a scale not seen there since the multifloor, warehouse-style Import Plaza closed in 2000.
Fans of Uwajimaya (pronounced ew-wa-ji-maya) typically carve out time to visit the supermarket; newcomers go out of their way to see it. The prospect of an anchor retailer with such a customer draw and Asian roots excites many of the district's business leaders and retailers. They say it would be just the sort of boost the neighborhood needs.
"We try so hard to develop Old Town while keeping its history," said Stephen Ying, president of the Chinese American Citizen Alliance. "This would be a tremendous help to Chinatown."
The Portland City Council earmarked $10 million in city-backed loans in a proposed budget for the estimated $80 million project. Designed for what is now a surface parking lot at Northwest Couch Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues, the development would include 140 mixed-income apartments on seven upper floors.
The store would be Uwajimaya's second in the Portland area and its fourth total; the company operates two in the Seattle area. Uwajimaya Plaza opened a decade ago in a former 30,000-square-foot Best hardware store along Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway and quickly drew a loyal following to its grocery aisles, restaurant and spaces for books and gifts.
Uwajimaya's popularity probably has benefited from a national trend that saw U.S. retail sales of Asian foods increase 27.3 percent from 2000 to 2004, according to market researcher Packaged Facts of Rockville, Md. The report hooks the growth to a growing Asian American population and the nation's increasingly worldly tastes.
Doug Obletz, whose Sockeye Development is expected to make a more in-depth presentation on the project to the Portland Development Commission this week, aims to put final agreements in place by year's end. He said construction could begin in late 2009.
Sockeye also owns Museum Place, a $27 million project it built at Southwest 10th Avenue and Jefferson Street. For its scale and potential impact on the neighborhood, Obletz calls the project a good template for the Uwajimaya plan. Museum Place, which took $3 million in PDC loans, features a first-floor grocery with 140 lofts and townhouses stacked above. Monthly rents range from $590 to $3,000.
"Uwajimaya would help us continue to march north with redevelopment," said Peter Englander of the PDC, which has spearheaded multiple projects aiming to reinvigorate Old Town/Chinatown.
The work includes new homes within the neighborhood for Portland Saturday Market, a University of Oregon branch campus and MercyCorps, Englander said. Coupled with the Uwajimaya store is a plan to redevelop the block across Couch Street to the south. The block abuts West Burnside and the Chinatown gate and eventually could share an underground parking lot with the grocery store.
"Uwajimaya could solidify our work," Englander said, "and light a fire within the Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood."
Obletz, of the Sockeye group, said the Uwajimaya project also could feature a second-floor courtyard, also similar to Museum Place, with retail space for a bookstore and white-tablecloth Chinese restaurant.
Unlike Museum Place, however, is the cost to build.
Obletz said construction costs have doubled -- without a proportionate rise in rents -- since Museum Place was completed in 2002. Part of that expense in Uwajimaya's case would be plans for the 300-space underground parking.
--Laura Gunderson,
lauragunderson@news.oregonian.com