A shuttered Kroger supermarket on Colerain Avenue has a new life as a $4 million nonprofit resource hub, complete with a thrift store, a discount outlet, a donation drop-off and a walk-in career center all under one roof. Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries celebrated the grand opening of the 6401 Colerain Ave. facility with a ceremony from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesday, marking the nonprofit's 25th location across the region.
The building sat vacant after Kroger departed the property in 2020, according to Local 12 News, with the property listed for sale or lease that same year. Before Goodwill's arrival, the roughly 60,645-square-foot building briefly operated as a discount closeout store run by local retailer CRdeals, which sold it to Ohio Valley Goodwill for $3.8 million on December 31, according to Hamilton County Auditor records reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer.
The Colerain center is now Ohio Valley Goodwill's largest store location in Greater Cincinnati outside of its Woodlawn headquarters complex, according to CityBeat. The outlet has been operating since it held a soft opening for its retail store, outlet and donation center starting August 21, ahead of Tuesday's formal celebration, per Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries.
A Four-in-One Model for Bargain Hunters and Job Seekers
What sets the Colerain location apart from a typical Goodwill is its combined format. The site functions as a four-in-one “resource hub,” pairing a traditional retail thrift store with an attended donation drop-off center, an outlet store and a walk-in Opportunity Center, according to the same CityBeat report. The Opportunity Center offers workforce and community support services alongside the retail operation, funded in part by proceeds from store sales.
The outlet section is only the second of its kind that Ohio Valley Goodwill has established in the region, and it follows a bargain-bin format: merchandise is sold by weight rather than at fixed per-item prices, with bins rotated throughout the day, per the CityBeat report. The nonprofit's first regional outlet opened in November 2024 at 10633 Glendale Rd. in Woodlawn, where 60 merchandise tables are refreshed every 40 minutes and the facility processes more than 25,000 pounds of material daily, according to Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries.
The new Colerain hub will be open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Part of a Larger Regional Growth Push
The Colerain opening fits into a much bigger expansion effort. Ohio Valley Goodwill is pursuing a $230 million, five-year regional growth strategy aimed at operating 30 stores across Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana by 2030, according to the Northern Kentucky Tribune. The nonprofit currently operates 22 retail locations across the Tri-State region as part of that push.
Founded in 1916 by Methodist minister Dr. Richard Scully at 8th Street and Freeman Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio Valley Goodwill has provided vocational training and support services in the region for 110 years, according to the organization. It later moved its primary complex to Woodlawn in 1957, which today serves as its regional administrative and processing center.
Filling a Retail Gap in Colerain Township
The new hub lands in a township of an estimated 59,608 residents, with a median household income of $73,103 and a poverty rate of 9.03%, according to Census estimates compiled by World Population Review. After leaving the standalone Colerain Avenue store, Kroger shifted its local investment toward a larger format, spending $2.5 million to renovate its Colerain Marketplace location on Springdale Road, according to the Colerain Chamber of Commerce.
That consolidation left a retail gap on Colerain Avenue that sat unresolved for years before Goodwill's purchase. Now the same building is positioned to serve residents through both discount shopping and direct access to job training and disability services, combining the nonprofit's mission-driven programming with the kind of bargain retail that has made outlet-style Goodwill stores popular elsewhere in the region.
