Kroger, the grocery giant that owns QFC, Fred Meyer and other grocery stores around the country, is planning to close another Fred Meyer in Tacoma. The store sits in the James Center shopping area right across from Tacoma Community College off a busy thoroughfare with a well-used bus line.
Reese Vetch said she shops at the store a couple of times a month.
“I think it's like 10 minutes from my house, so it's a good option, and they have great deals at Fred Meyer,” Vetsch said. “All the options that are near to me, they don't have any deals, and so it's rough.”
This option will be gone when the store closes in January 2027.
“It's a bummer. I think this store has a lot of good selection, too,” Vetsch said. “It's disappointing.”
The company notified the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367, which represents about 100 employees at the store, the night before Kroger announced the closure to the staff.
Michael Hines, president of UFCW Local 367, said the union doesn’t know how many people might lose their jobs because of the closure. The union will be bargaining with Kroger over the coming months and hopes to get impacted employees placed at other Kroger locations.
“When we go in and bargain this time, we just wanna make sure that there's commitments that people will not only end up working somewhere else but that they're gonna maintain their level of wages, hours and benefits,” Hines said.
When the company communicated the closure decision to the union, Hines said Kroger explained it was closing the store because it couldn’t pay the rising rent price.
“It was basically people saying that the landlord was not working with them and raised the rent so high that they couldn't afford to stay, and that's just not correct. We lowered it considerably,” said Stan Rosen, the managing partner of James Center Associates, the landlord for the Fred Meyer store and surrounding businesses.
Rosen said that Kroger chose not to stay when the time to renew its five-year lease came up. That five-year extension comes with an increase. When Kroger said that they wouldn't be extending, Rosen said they countered with a rent decrease. Rosen said the percentages of increase and decrease are confidential. But Kroger still chose not to stay.
Rosen said he is unclear why Kroger chose not to stay. But, he said, based on volume, which in this case means gross sales, the store was consistently performing well. He said he could not share the gross sales figure due to confidentiality.
“I think the store did very well, or had a high volume, in my opinion,” Rosen said. “Now, whether they could operate it profitably, that's their problem. That's their business and I can't control that. All I can do is to try to make it affordable for them to stay, which we did.”
Kroger didn't respond to direct questions about why it decided to close the store.
Rosen said without the grocery store, James Center is less desirable, and beyond that, he said the community relies on it. His goal is to have another grocery store move into the location.
Community members are worried that with the store’s closure, access to healthy, affordable food for people nearby will decrease.
“The Fred Meyer store at James Center has quietly served as an important resource for our students, employees, and surrounding community,” said Tamyra Howser, Vice President, College Relations, via email. “For our students, it provides close, safe access to a grocery store that has a more affordable price point for food, versus a restaurant or a gas station convenience store.”
When this Fred Meyer closes, the nearest grocery stores to it are a mile away, and the nearest Fred Meyer is two miles away from the college.
“When access to healthy food becomes more difficult, the impact extends far beyond grocery shopping. It affects students' time, finances, health, stress levels, and ultimately their ability to persist and succeed,” Howser said. “This news comes at a time when individuals and families are already struggling with rising costs and competing demands.”
The James Center store will be the second Fred Meyer to close in Tacoma since 2025. That other location still sits empty. A lot of employees from that store, 94%, were transferred to other Kroger-owned stores to keep their jobs, according to Hines.
But Hines said there are fewer options now because there are fewer stores. He said he anticipates that fewer members will be able to transfer to a Kroger store in the area because of that.
“The more stores they close, the harder it becomes to ensure that people keep their jobs,” Hines said.
For those that can’t transfer into Fred Meyers or QFCs in the area, Hines said they'll look for job openings at other stores that the union represents, as a backup plan. This is not ideal because workers would lose the seniority they had at Fred Meyer.
Workers will also be made aware of resources like the Washington State Labor Council's hardship fund.
When the James Center Fred Meyer closes in just over three months, the last one in Tacoma will be located east of the closing store, on South 19th street.
Read the audio transcript here.
