Independent Portland, Ore., Retailer Fighting to Keep Store
By Greg Lindenberg on Jun. 22, 2017PORTLAND, Ore. -- A popular Portland, Ore., convenience-store retailer is enlisting his customers and employees to help save one of his locations from a redevelopment plan that will force him to close one of his four downtown locations. Doug Peterson is waging what he calls a “David and Goliath battle with the City of Portland” to keep the store, Peterson’s on Morrison.
The Portland Development Commission, known as Prosper Portland, has approved a more than $25 million plan to rebuild the 40-year-old parking structure and renovate the street-level retail space. The plan requires the retail tenants to close their stores and vacate the building. Construction will start in early 2018. It is slated to be complete by November 2018.
Peterson’s Convenience Stores will be forced to close a location it has had for more than 32 years, and which employs many of Peterson’s 28 staff members, on Jan. 14, Peterson said.
This is a story with no apparent bad guys. On one side are the laudable efforts to improve and modernize a downtown business district, to encourage small-business entrepreneurialism and diversity and to provide new jobs; on the other side are the equally laudable efforts of a longtime independent entrepreneur to continue to serve the community and provide jobs for an already diverse group of employees.
Here are more details. …
Save Peterson's
Peterson, who spent many years working for Fred Meyer Grocery, has set up stores all over the Northwest, his biography says. Peterson’s Grocery and Convenience Stores has been serving Portland since 1984, and Peterson’s on Morrison opened that same year.
The chain’s retail outlets “are much like stores you’ll find in Manhattan, storefronts on busy pedestrian sidewalks,” Peterson told CSP Daily News. “Our Morrison convenience store was our first store and it is our best volume store.”
The store in jeopardy serves more than 900 customers daily, he said. “We have a huge following. Everyone downtown shops with us. We are an icon just like Powell’s Books and Voodoo Doughnut."
His “Save Peterson’s” campaign calls for Portland citizens to contact Mayor Ted Wheeler to petition to allow Peterson’s on Morrison to return to its space when the project is complete. He says “hundreds” of people have shown their support for his cause.
“Please contact the mayor as soon as possible to ask to save Peterson’s,” Peterson said in the press release he sent to local newspapers, television and talk radio. “I may survive, but my staff will be gravely damaged. This is not the way to build Portland.”
Prosper Portland
“The strategic plan is really to try to bring in more female business owners and entrepreneurs of color and highlight the diversity of Portland,” Shawn Uhlman, public affairs and community engagement manager for Prosper Portland, told CSP Daily News.
“The garage was built decades ago, and it is not a very welcoming environment. The retail spaces are set way back, the lighting in not good, and some of the spaces are overly large,” he said.
The c-store occupies approximately 2,000 square feet. Prosper Portland’s plan, Resolution 7240, calls for 1,000-square-foot retail spaces at the largest.
“When this work is complete, those spaces are all going to look dramatically different,” Uhlman said. “We’ll optimize the spaces and bring more of a welcoming retail environment … and make this more of a destination for pedestrians who are out walking and add to the vibrancy of that area. That’s a very strong retail area.”
Prosper Portland will accept applications from new and existing businesses to occupy or reoccupy the retail space. It has not decided yet on the types of businesses that it will consider, but “all of the existing tenants who are in the spaces now are strongly encouraged to apply,” he said.
“The No. 1 goal is to have a mix, an experience where you go for one thing, perhaps, but the adjoining stores are interesting, and you just go down the line,” said Uhlman. “The idea is to bring in new entrepreneurs or business owners that are very new to the idea of a brick-and-mortar store, so there will be some very small square footage, like a market hall or a booth at a farmer’s market, and that entrepreneur may be prepared to make that leap to brick-and-mortar.”
Portland City Council
Peterson and several of his employees testified before the Portland City Council on June 21 in support of the store and its future (click here to watch the testimony [06:20]).
Prosper Portland “apparently doesn’t think our customers are the ‘right’ kind. Our customers are everyday people, business people, they’re men and women, office workers, construction workers, service people, students, tourists, everybody, and yet they think that’s not the right type of business, so they want something gentrified,” Peterson said.
“There’s a sense of community and camaraderie that I’ve never seen anywhere else,” said Claudia Brubaker, a three-year employee at Peterson’s on Morrison. “The amount of appreciation for our store from local Oregonians is incredible.”
“The closure of Peterson’s would not only affect elderly and disabled downtown residents, it would also cause the loss of jobs for many people like myself,” she said. “We heard that you are going to have women and minorities … there are a lot of women and minorities working with us now. I would hate to see them lose their jobs. I don’t want to lose my job. We rely on Peterson’s to survive.”
Sean Eidlin, morning manager at Peterson’s on Morrison, said, “I deal with a lot of locals. Police officers, TRI-MET [and] construction workers, you name it, they come through there and they get their soda, their candy bar, their snacks. … They rely on it. We’re open until 2:30 a.m. People stand there and wait for [the bus] when it gets dark. It’s a safe place to stay.”
“We’ve already established roots there” Eidlin said. “It’s a Portland icon. People know Peterson’s.”
“Thirty-two years ago, Mr. Peterson, with true entrepreneurial spirit … [saw] the tremendous potential that the Southwest 10th and Morrison location offered,” said Geno Heleen, the chain’s IT manager. “Now Prosper Portland has a similar vision and now wants to take away his.”
Peterson’s employees are “from all backgrounds, races, religions and sexual orientations,” he said. “In light of recent world events and a justified call to harmony, it’s important not to discard local businesses and the sense of community that they foster. Personal relationships that local small merchants build with their customers are part of the lifeblood that creates the unique personality that defines a city and, in turn, that sense of community creates an atmosphere of harmony itself.”
“Just to be very clear, [a] decision has not been made,” Mayor Wheeler said at the City Council meeting. “Personally, I am a huge fan of Peterson’s. It’s a great institution.”