After a decade of false starts and neighborhood rumor mill updates, Madison Valley is finally getting the full-service PCC grocery it was promised. The co-op is set to anchor the ground floor of The Arbory, a long-delayed mixed-use project rising on the old City People’s Garden Store site, with an opening planned for this fall.
PCC Community Markets has signed on for roughly 24,000 square feet at The Arbory and is targeting a fall opening this year, according to reporting by Puget Sound Business Journal. The deal makes PCC the project’s primary retail tenant and finally delivers the street-level grocery neighbors have been watching for since before some of the new residents even signed their leases.
Why The Project Dragged On
The plan for a PCC at this site first surfaced in 2016, but actual shovels and concrete took much longer to arrive. The project was slowed by neighborhood pushback and a lengthy land-use and design review process, as reported at the time by The Seattle Times. Nearly a decade later, construction on The Arbory has reached the tenant-improvement phase, and paperwork for permits to build out the grocery interior has now been filed, CHS Capitol Hill reports.
Where It Will Sit
The Arbory stands at 2925 E Madison St, right by the Washington Park Arboretum, and is set to include about 82 apartments stacked above ground-floor retail, according to the building’s marketing site The Arbory. Leasing materials and commercial listings outline a substantial grocery footprint with underground parking plus additional shop spaces reserved for other neighborhood businesses, according to property listings on LoopNet.
PCC’s Local Strategy
PCC has been reshaping its Seattle presence since the pandemic, including closing a full-service downtown store and experimenting with smaller formats such as a roughly 6,000-square-foot Corner Market downtown last year, as covered by Eater Seattle. Locking in a large anchor lease in Madison Valley suggests the co-op is still betting heavily on full-service neighborhood groceries even as it tests more compact urban concepts elsewhere.
What’s Next
With tenant improvements underway and the apartments above already being marketed, Puget Sound Business Journal reports that PCC is aiming for a fall opening while interior work progresses this year. Project materials show delivery of the premises in 2026, with interior work expected to continue through the spring and summer before the final store build-out wraps up, according to the developer’s site The Arbory. Neighbors can expect to see more ground-floor activity in the coming months as crews shift from exterior construction to getting the grocery space ready to stock.
