NEW RETAIL MOVES IN
Bellingham’s Meridian Street area gets new stores, and more are coming BY EVAN MARCZYNSKI The Bellingham Business Journal ugust was a month of new retail business in north Bellingham. At Sports Authority, which opened Aug. 2 at Bellis Fair Mall, the annual “back to school” shopping frenzy is contributing to strong initial sales, said Jeff Robertson, the store’s manager. But the late-summer sun is another, perhaps larger, business booster. “[Our] outdoors area is doing really well with the weather being the way it is,” Robertson said. Several large-scale stores in the busy commercial areas around Meridian Street have recently opened. And several others are expected to move in over the next few months. WinCo Foods, the discount grocer that operates more than 80 stores in the western U.S., opened Aug. 15 in the former location of Joe’s Sporting Goods at 300 E. Bellis Fair Parkway. Nearby, Carpet Liquidators is remodeling a nearly 20,000-square-foot location that was once home to a Good Guys electronics store. The carpet and flooring retailer has five locations in the Puget Sound area. Its future building on Meridian Street has been mostly empty since the California-based Good Guys chain closed its Bellingham store in 2005, several years after the company was purchased by CompUSA and eventually phased out entirely. A few blocks to the south, a building permit has been issued for a new Sears Hometown Store
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See RETAIL, Page 22
Year 21 No. 9
SEPT 2013
See THE DIRT, Page 14
theBUZZ Semiahmoo Resort back in action The popular Blaine hotel and golf resort re-opened and began taking new reservations in August. Its new owners will continue making updates to the facility over the next several months.
Local home sales jumped in July Closed sales on singlefamily homes and condos in Whatcom County were up more than 44 percent, compared to the same month last year. Home prices, however, are falling slightly. (See p. 6)
Bellingham gives OK to marijuana retail
EVAN MARCZYNSKI PHOTO | THE BELLINGHAM BUSINESS JOURNAL
Addie Moss tests and adjusts the rear derailleur on a customer’s mountain bike at the new Sports Authority in Bellingham’s Bellis Fair Mall on Friday, Aug. 9.
BY EVAN MARCZYNSKI The Bellingham Business Journal ost Cutter is closing its two grocery stores in Bellingham, one on Meridian Street and the other in the Sunset Square shopping center, later this year, according to the stores’ parent company, The Markets LLC. An Aug. 16 news release
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Council hopefuls talk waterfront, economy
Local sales rising
Cost Cutter to close Bellingham stores
Whatcom County Q1 total retail, 2009-2013 2013: $757.1 million
$800M
2009: $624.4 million $600M $400M
Bellingham Non-Bellingham
Local election coverage continues with interviews with candidates running for the Bellingham City Council. What do the candidates think about the city’s future economic hopes? (See p. 8) See BUZZ, Page 3
Price: $1.00
SOURCE: Washington State Department of Revenue
$200M
See COST CUTTER, Page 5
City Council lifts moratorium on recreational marijuana business in city limits, just in time for state regulators to delay final action on a licensing and governing system for the new cannabis retail market. (See. p. 6)
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