WinCo Cancels Plans for Washington Site

ELLIOT ZWIEBACH

BOISE, Idaho — WinCo Foods here is apparently continuing to reassess its real estate holdings by canceling plans to open a store in eastern Washington and putting the property up for sale.

Published reports last week indicated WinCo has decided not to open a store in Union Gap, Wash., on a nine-acre parcel the company purchased in March 2010, opting to put the property up for sale.

In August, the company told SN it had decided not to go forward with plans for a distribution center it had contemplated opening in Southern California but would instead sell the 130-acre property.

At that time Mike Read, the company's spokesman, told SN, “We thought it makes more sense right now for WinCo to ... continue to deliver product to Southern California from our Modesto distribution center [in Northern California]."

Regarding the eastern Washington property, Read was quoted in a local newspaper earlier this week saying, "We had planned for more aggressive growth, [but] with the continuing recessionary economy, we have slowed our growth and taken a hard look at all the properties in our portfolio."