Food Front brings co-op store to Hillsdale

Group will spend $1.1 million to renovate former Wild Oats space

By Peter Korn

The Portland Tribune, May 8, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (5 Reader comments)

Shasta Kearns Moore / Pamplin Media Group

Holly Jarvis, general manager for the Food Front cooperative, stands in front of the vacant grocery store site in the Hillsdale Shopping Center where her group will put its second Portland store. Jarvis said the project was “moving along really well.”

Food Front, the long-time Northwest Portland cooperative grocery store, is taking over the vacant Wild Oats space in the Hillsdale Shopping Center and expects to have its second store open there in August.

Tom Mattox, Food Front spokesman, said Thursday that renovation of the 6,000-square-foot site at 6344 S.W. Capitol Highway will take place throughout the summer and is anticipated to cost the co-op $1.1 million.

About a third of the cost of opening in Hillsdale is expected to come from new $150 memberships, which will be valid at both the Food Front stores, Mattox said. The co-op has enough cash reserves to cover another third of the cost, and a bank loan will cover the remainder.

The new store will be similar to the current Food Front, 2375 N.W. Thurman St., focusing on local and organic produce, but with a butcher and larger meat section, Mattox said.

Mattox said that since October, Food Front has received between 400 and 500 e-mails and calls from Hillsdale residents asking the co-op to open at the site. The space for years held a Nature’s Fresh Northwest grocery store, before that company was purchased by national chains Wild Oats and later, Whole Foods. The Wild Oats store closed in October.

Food Front has operated in Northwest Portland for about three dozen years, beginning as a small co-op at which members could work for memberships. Today memberships are only available by purchase, but Mattox said that the cooperative nature of the stores would allow Hillsdale residents to have a voice in the stability of the store.

“You always hear the term socially responsible investing,” Mattox said. “This is a way for people to put a little bit of money into creating a new natural foods grocery store. As long as people in the community support this store it will remain vital, and the same things that happened with Wild Oats and Whole Foods won’t happen because the community owns it.”

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