The co-op will open its first ever small format store, serving city center office workers and downtown residents.
SEATTLE – PCC Community Markets (PCC or “the co-op”), a community-owned grocery cooperative in the Puget Sound region, announced plans to return to Downtown Seattle at 4th & Union with a new small format style store occupying a portion of the footprint of the traditional format store that closed in January 2024. Catering to office workers and Downtown residents seeking hot, fresh, and prepared foods during their workday, the new store will also carry a limited selection of grocery and pantry items. Like any PCC store, all products will meet the co-op’s rigorous quality and sourcing standards, and the shopping experience will be similar to other neighborhood stores operated by the co-op.
PCC is contractually obligated to its long-term lease obligation at the Downtown location despite the past closure of its full-service grocery store. Considering this, the co-op’s leadership team has worked actively for the past eight months, in close partnership with its landlord Wright Runstad, on innovative ways to reactivate the space in a manner consistent with the co-op’s triple bottom line focus on people, planet and profit.
The idea for a small format food market, approximately six thousand five hundred feet in size, was informed by a wealth of insights and lessons learned from the previous store’s two-year operating tenure, and particularly the performance of its highly successful prepared foods and deli department. This new store will recreate the best of that experience, while also making available a selection of other perennial shopper favorites.
“We continue to hear– from co-op members, our staff, and downtown residents – about a strong need in the city center for the kind of unique shopping and dining experience that only PCC offers. We are thrilled to be able to meet that need by returning with a new concept that promises significantly better economics than a full-service grocery store,” said Krish Srinivasan, PCC’s President & CEO. “We are also deeply grateful for the collaboration and flexibility of our partners at Wright Runstad, and to everyone at City Hall, the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Seattle Association who share our commitment to building a vibrant downtown economy and community.”
PCC will utilize the remaining space immediately adjacent to the new store to relocate the co-op’s office that serves the 15 stores it operates in the Puget Sound area. PCC will not renew its current office lease when it expires in 2025, believing that the cost, size, and location of the space does not best represent the co-op’s values. As the organization embraces a post-pandemic, hybrid workplace for its centralized support functions, the new downtown location offers a significant and necessary reduction in office space, with the added benefit of adjacency to one of the co-op’s stores. It also delivers an overall reduction to the co-op’s rent expense burden.
“As a community-owned grocer, our business decisions strive to balance people, planet and profit,” said Srinivasan. “We believe that recommitting to good food in Seattle’s city center while also meaningfully reducing the cost of administrative office overhead is a good example of how, at PCC, purpose and profit are two sides of the same coin.”
“On behalf of our ownership and the entire Rainier Square community, we look forward to welcoming PCC back with open arms,” said Walt Ingram, Chairman & CEO of Wright Runstad & Company. “We appreciate PCC’s commitment to Downtown Seattle and our continuing partnership.”
About PCC Community Markets
Founded in Seattle in 1953, PCC Community Markets (PCC) is a certified organic retailer and the nation’s largest community-owned food market. With an active membership of more than 115,000 members, PCC is committed to a triple bottom line that balances environmental, social, and economic goals while reducing environmental impacts and giving back to its community. The co-op’s mission is to ensure that good food nourishes the communities it serves, while cultivating vibrant, local, organic food systems. PCC currently operates 15 stores in the Puget Sound area, including the cities of Bellevue, Bothell, Burien, Edmonds, Issaquah, Kirkland, Redmond, and Seattle. Seattle stores are in the neighborhoods of Ballard, Central District, Columbia City, Fremont, Green Lake, View Ridge, and West Seattle.
