Right now it’s a muddy lot between the Chevron station and the Campbell Street interchange on Interstate 84, but the 2.5-acre parcel will be home to a Grocery Outlet store in a little over a year.

Construction on the 19,000-square-foot building should start next spring after the snow melts, said Greg Smith, Baker County’s contracted economic developer.

The store is slated to open in early 2019, according to Rosenda Somoza, an account executive with the company Grocery Outlet employs for marketing services.

Grocery Outlet, which is based in Berkeley, California, has more than 280 independently owned stores in several states. Its Oregon locations include La Grande, Ontario and Pendleton.

Bringing the store to Baker City was a collaborative effort involving Smith’s office, city and county officials.

“This is a success that everyone can enjoy,” Smith said. “It’s kind of an indicator that the economy of Baker is growing and that opportunities are coming our way.”

Smith said Bill Harvey, chairman of the Baker County Board of Commissioners, was a big help with his background owning a construction company.

“There was a lot of collaboration,” Smith said. “There was a lot of working together.”

Harvey, a former manager at Safeway who helped to open the company’s store in Baker City more than 30 years ago, said he offered advice to Grocery Outlet officials concerning their move here.

“It’s a great thing for Baker County,” Harvey said. “I’ve been personally working on it for over a year and a half.”

Baker City Manager Fred Warner Jr. and Harvey both said the new store will increase competition in the grocery business.

Baker City has two major grocery stores, Safeway and Albertsons. Since a 2015 merger, both have been owned by the same corporation.

“I’m glad we’re going to give people another shopping venue,” Warner said. “Competition is always a good thing. I think Safeway and Albertsons have been good partners, but they can stand some competition.”

Warner hopes the new store will help to keep local shoppers from traveling to La Grande and Ontario to do their shopping.

Harvey believes the store is a good complement to the two existing grocery stores in town.

“It kind of fills some needs that aren’t being met completely,” he said. “It will add some competition to what’s already here now. Competition is always a good thing for the consumer. It’s a plus for all of us.”

Sign size

Grocery Outlet officials wanted the city to change its zoning ordinance to allow larger, taller free-standing signs on the property, which is in the freeway overlay zone.

In an update to the zoning ordinance passed by the City Council in March, signs in the commercial zone, including the freeway area, were limited to 15 feet high.

“That was one of the major hurdles that needed to be overcome,” Smith said.

Warner said he is not sure how the 15-foot height limit was included in the ordinance affecting the freeway overlay zone, where signs that short aren’t visible from parts of the freeway.

“I don’t know if it was a conscious decision or if it was an oversight,” Warner said.

The City Council, which met Tuesday, passed the first reading of an amendment to the ordinance that allows free-standing signs up to 65 feet high in the freeway overlay zone (the 15-foot limit remains for all other commercially zoned properties).

The change was made not just because of the request by Grocery Outlet, but also for other companies that might be interested in locating near the freeway.

For example, Warner said he believes Baker City is poised for the development of another motel which would probably be built east of the freeway.

“Those people are going to want to have a sign of some kind to be visible from the freeway,” he said. “My thoughts were we need to revisit the zoning ordinance and about the same time Grocery Outlet came along.”

Warner praised the collaborative effort of all involved to make Grocery Outlet’s move to Baker City possible.

He said city staff has done preliminary work with representatives of Grocery Outlet to make sure utilities and other infrastructure are in place and adequate for the facility.

“We have done a lot of work … and sat down with all the partners: the county, the fire marshal and Greg Smith’s office,” Warner said. “We gave them what they needed to do. I think it just was a good process all the way around and I think everybody can share the credit in that.”

Although Grocery Outlet officials contacted Smith and city and county officials a few months ago about moving to Baker City, Smith said his office started efforts to entice the company a year and a half ago, when Baker City was temporarily left with only one grocery store — Safeway — after Haggen closed its store (the former, and current, Albertsons store).

See more in the Oct. 25, 2017, issue of the Baker City Herald.