Beer, Asian groceries to help revive former Las Vegas grocery store site
Boca Park is a popular shopping center in Las Vegas, but it’s had a big, shuttered store for nearly a decade: a former Haggen supermarket.
Now, another grocer and a local brewery are slated to bring the building back to life.
Grocery chain 99 Ranch Market has drawn up plans for a roughly 50,000-square-foot store in Boca Park, city records show, and Nevada Brew Works is under construction on a neighboring new outpost. Both are located in the now-subdivided, roughly 63,000-square-foot former Haggen building at 820 S. Rampart Blvd., just north of Charleston Boulevard.
Nevada Brew Works opened in Las Vegas’ Arts District area nearly five years ago, and co-owner Jason Taylor recently said that he hopes to open in Boca Park by Sept. 1.
It will brew beer on-site and have a full restaurant, he noted.
A representative for 99 Ranch said the Southern California-based Asian grocer is “still preparing for the opening” in Boca Park but did not say when it would debut.
However, a real estate broker who was hired to lease out a portion of the building said he was told the grocery store would open this month.
Failed growth spurt
The building, which was occupied by Vons before Haggen, seems like prime suburban real estate. It’s in a sprawling retail center with big-name stores and popular eateries, sits near the intersection of two busy roadways, and is close to such communities as Summerlin, Peccole Ranch and Queensridge.
Taylor, for one, said it seemed “very strange” that the space was empty for so long.
Its vacancy can be traced back to a big corporate expansion that quickly flopped.
Haggen, based in Washington state, had 18 stores in the Pacific Northwest before it exploded in growth overnight about a decade ago. It acquired nearly 150 stores in the Western U.S., including seven in Southern Nevada, as part of a merger-related sell-off.
The deal was announced in December 2014, but Haggen sank under its own weight and filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2015. It soon closed all of its Southern Nevada locations, most of which were occupied by new users within a few years, with a big exception.
The chief executive of a food producer bought the vacant former Haggen space in Boca Park in spring 2019 as a real estate investment, with plans to fill it with one or two tenants, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported at the time.
But the pandemic hit, the building stayed empty, and the operators of 99 Ranch purchased the space in summer 2021, according to property records and business-entity filings.
Last year, 99 Ranch filed documents with the city of Las Vegas that showed plans for the new location.
Grocery wars
Taylor, who signed his lease for the building last year, said he has lived in Summerlin since 2009, often visits Boca Park and was interested in the former Haggen space years ago. He pointed to the surrounding population density and ample parking in front of the building.
Taylor noted that parking can get tight in a nearby section of Boca Park that has Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, Sambalatte coffee shop and other eateries. He figures that people may park near the brewery and check it out, too.
Cushman & Wakefield broker Dan Hubbard, who was hired to lease the remaining 9,350 square feet of the former Haggen building, indicated that he is targeting food and beverage outlets.
Hubbard said he was told the new 99 Ranch would open in August. Driving by, it doesn’t look like much activity is going on, but Hubbard said the grocery store is “well under construction.”
He said he didn’t know why it took 99 Ranch so long to get going. But he chalked up the building’s long-shuttered status to a few reasons, including a saturation of supermarkets in the area.
Today, there is one less competitor nearby. Whole Foods Market recently moved out of a strip mall across from Boca Park to a newly built plaza 3 miles away in Summerlin.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
