PORT ANGELES — The building that housed the shuttered Port Angeles Haggen has been sold after a burst of last-minute bids Wednesday morning.
Jeb Howell, president of Auction Management Co., said he couldn’t yet disclose who purchased the property for $1.56 million but said the top bidder and the runner-up were both companies locals would recognize.
“We have to protect our buyers, and they may not want to be public yet,” Howell said.
The property at 114 E. Lauridsen Blvd. is appraised at $4,787,471 taxable value.
The auction ended Wednesday morning with 83 bids by several bidders on the building. Howell said he was surprised the property sold for as much as it did.
“It went for more than I thought it would,” he said. “We had good bidding and different types of bidders bidding.”
The first bid Wednesday was $200,000, but that number jumped as two bidders went back and forth until it reached $1.56 million. The last bid was at 10:42 a.m.
Howell said bidders included grocery stores and “two or three other profiles.”
The starting bid of $250,000 was dropped Monday when the seller decided to sell the property “absolute.”
Howell said the buyer was required to sign a contract immediately after the auction ended and wire earnest money to the escrow agent.
Until then, the sale is pending, he said.
The closing date for the sale is Sept. 18.
The current owner of the property, Spirit SPE HG2015-1 LLC, acquired the property from ABS WA-O LLC in February 2015 for $9,567,378.
The former grocery store has sat empty since April 2016 after Haggen Northwest Fresh announced it would sell most of its stores to Albertsons.
The Port Angeles store didn’t make the list after Bellingham-based Haggen accepted Albertsons’ $106 million bid to buy 29 of its 32 core stores.
The Port Angeles grocery store — the only Haggen on the Olympic Peninsula — had operated as part of the Albertsons chain until it was purchased by Haggen in late 2014 and updated with Haggen signs and colors in February 2015.
The chain reaction had begun in March 2014, when it was announced that Safeway had agreed to be acquired by an investment group led by Cerberus Capital Management, the owner of several supermarket chains, including Albertsons.
Federal regulators required the newly blended grocery store chains to sell some stores to avoid a monopoly, and Haggen bought 146 stores.
The small Washington chain of stores struggled to convert those stores before filing for bankruptcy protection and eventually selling its stores.
The grocer is now under Albertsons’ ownership, which still operates 15 stores in Western Washington under the Haggen brand.
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.
