A decade after Hank's Thriftway shuttered in downtown Hillsboro, the community-owned Hillsboro Food Co-op says it plans to open a full-service grocery store on the very same block, filling a food-access gap that has outlasted at least two failed redevelopment attempts. The co-op intends to occupy ground-floor retail space at 661 SE Baseline St, inside a project now known as Block 67, alongside 338 new apartments split between senior and workforce housing.
Dawn Wallace confirmed the grocery store plans directly to WhatNow Portland, though she cautioned the project is likely still a couple of years away from opening. The co-op is partnering with Fresh Foods, an independent regional Oregon grocer, to run the store, and the two together have been mission-driven around one goal for years: getting local, sustainable and affordable food back onto this stretch of downtown Hillsboro. The Hillsboro Food Co-op has positioned itself as a locally focused alternative to traditional grocery chains since it incorporated in 2014, and it has grown to more than 900 member-owners who share in the store's direction, according to the Hillsboro Herald.
A Site That Sat Empty for Nearly a Decade
Hank's Thriftway closed in June 2015 after 80 years in business, and the City of Hillsboro paid $4.8 million for the 3.61-acre property in December 2016 before demolishing the old building in 2017 to make way for redevelopment, per the Forest Grove News-Times. The block then sat vacant for years while the city worked through failed public-private partnerships. A $150 million plan called Viridian, which promised 226 housing units, an 80,000-square-foot medical clinic and a Fresh Foods grocery store, collapsed in 2022 before Kōz Development entered the picture.
Kōz Development, based in Washington, entered a disposition agreement with the city in December 2024, and the Hillsboro City Council officially approved transferring the property to the developer for $1 in June 2025, according to the same News-Times report. The deal required Kōz to hit city targets for affordable housing, ground-floor retail and open space — the mechanism that ultimately brought the grocery co-op back into the project after Fresh Foods had already signed on once before, under the failed Viridian plan.
Two Buildings, 338 Homes, and a Grocery Anchor
The resulting project, sometimes referred to in reporting as the Hillsboro Food Co-op redevelopment, includes two buildings totaling 338 residential units. The four-story Washington Street building will hold 114 units of senior housing, while the six-story Baseline Street building will include 224 units of workforce housing for households earning 60% to 80% of Area Median Income, the News-Times reported. The ground-floor retail space in the Baseline Street building is set aside for the grocery store itself.
Per the Hillsboro Food Co-op's own published plans, the grocery space will span roughly 17,000 total square feet, with about 13,000 square feet dedicated to retail selling space and the remaining 4,000 square feet used for storage and food preparation. Regional housing data cited by Hoodline in March found that adults 55 and older are the fastest-growing group experiencing housing insecurity and shelter admissions in Washington County, underscoring the demand behind the project's senior housing component.
Leadership and Timeline
Alyssa Schorer, who has lived in Hillsboro since 2015 and runs a construction consulting business, is leading the Hillsboro Food Co-op project. Her background is in structural engineering, according to WhatNow's reporting. Construction on Block 67 is expected to run roughly two years, with city project schedules placing sitework from summer through fall 2026, building construction continuing through spring or summer 2028, and a target grand opening for the buildings in that same window.
The Block 67 project isn't happening in isolation. It sits next to Block 56, where the former Miller Education Center is being redeveloped into a new Virginia Garcia Hillsboro Wellness Center and a Portland Community College workforce project, according to the City of Hillsboro. Together, the two blocks are meant to knit historic Main Street to the nearby medical center as part of a broader health, education and workforce corridor downtown. Hoodline previously reported on Kōz Development's initial selection for the site in 2024, and more recently covered the completed Dolores project, which brought 67 affordable homes to Hillsboro's Tanasbourne area in July.
