Fiesta Foods plans retail development near its Yakima store

YAKIMA, Wash. -- A regional Mexican supermarket chain has plans to build a new retail area next to its East Yakima store.

Fiesta Foods, which opened its doors at 1008 E. Nob Hill Blvd. in June 2007, wants to construct about 27,000-square-foot building in new retail space at the former Dwinell’s Visual Systems building.

It has submitted an environmental review application to the city of Yakima to demolish the existing building and construct a new 20,000-square-building along with two retail pads.

Depending on the planning process, owner Craig Gaylord hopes to start construction by the end of the summer.

No tenants have signed on to the project yet, but Gaylord notes that he often gets requests from other businesses to be located near his grocery stores, which generate lots of shopper traffic. He estimates that 100,000 people a week go to the Yakima store.

“I think it’s an opportunity to have a good investment that complements Fiesta Foods,” he said.

Gaylord purchased the property at 1112 E. Nob Hill Blvd. more than a year ago for $1.5 million, according to the Yakima County Assessor’s Office.
He wanted to start the project earlier, but was occupied with the construction of Fiesta Foods’ fourth store, which will open in Hermiston, Ore. Wednesday.

Fiesta Foods, which opened its first store in Pasco in 2003, offers Mexican specialties such as a tortilla bakery but caters to non-Latino shoppers who want to shop for Mexican food items by selling items from non-Latino brands at lower prices. It came to the Yakima Valley in 2006 when it opened a store in Sunnyside.

• Mai Hoang can be reached at 577-7685, or  at mhoang@yakimaherald.com.