Business/Economy

Village corporation to reopen old Swanson's in Bethel

BETHEL -- The old Swanson's grocery store will become the new-old Swanson's, or at least that's what people are calling it for now.

Sea Lion Corp. -- the Hooper Bay village corporation -- announced Tuesday that a subsidiary, which along with silent partners owns the old store building near the center of town in addition to other retail space in Bethel and Dillingham, will reopen the old grocery April 15.

It doesn't yet have a name -- managers are still deciding whether to keep the name Swanson's, said Sloane Unwin, spokesman for both Sea Lion and the subsidiary, UCI LLC. But a green sign on the building says, "SWANSON'S OPENING MID APRIL!!!!"

The store initially will carry limited offerings of bulk dry goods and frozen foods, Unwin said. Crews are inspecting cases and still are evaluating whether to bring in perishable produce and dairy items, he said. It will open initially in about 4,000 to 5,000 square feet, just a small portion of the old 35,000-square-foot building, Unwin said.

"It's going to be a truncated version of that store," Unwin said. "The core of the business to us seems solid."

He wasn't sure whether the store will include clothing and fabric, which were popular lines in Bethel. He also couldn't say whether the space, which an Omni official had called "a dilapidated old building," will be renovated.

The old Swanson's closed last year after operator Omni Enterprises moved Swanson's into big new space near the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. campus. But less than nine months after opening, the new Swanson's went out of business. It closed its doors March 13, the most prominent failure in the collapse of Omni Enterprises.

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That left Bethel with just one main grocery store, run by the Alaska Commercial Co.

Omni -- an employee-owned company -- liquidated, according to Sea Lion. The village corporation owns a number of retail buildings in Bethel that Omni had operated out of, as well as the N&N Market in Dillingham.

The N&N Market also was closed, a blow to the Bristol Bay hub. It will reopen Monday, according to Sea Lion.

In the Mat-Su, Three Bears Alaska has moved into Omni's Big Lake IGA store, according to Steve Mierop, Three Bears vice president and chief financial officer. It is set to reopen Friday as a compact grocery store, not a big warehouse store, he said. Three Bears, which is still owned mainly by the family who started the chain, is leasing the space, he said.

In Bethel, Sea Lion has been running the Swanson's hardware store, lumber yard, furniture store and Quick Foods market for the past week, Unwin said. Omni locked the doors one evening, and Sea Lion opened up the morning, hiring many of Omni's employees, he said. A few more positions may still need to be filled, he added.

"We didn't take over. We restarted new businesses," Unwin said. "I want to make it very clear. We're not assuming any of Omni's debts or liabilities."

The Polaris dealership run by Omni has closed and Sea Lion is trying to sell or lease that space, he said.

Before it shut down, Omni still was under a lease obligation to Sea Lion for the old store and other retail space even while it was scrambling to cover lease payments for the new space built and owned by Bethel Native Corp. Sea Lion isn't saying how much the lease payments were or how much Omni owed, but Sea Lion is one of Omni's creditors, Unwin said.

Omni ended operations statewide in March, according to the LinkedIn profile of the former Omni president, Russ Lindsay. A voice mail message left Tuesday at its Anchorage headquarters wasn't returned, and company officials didn't respond to repeated interview requests earlier in March. The company website was taken down weeks ago.

"They've kind of disappeared," Mierop said of Omni. "They are not operating any stores anymore."

Lindsay, who worked 22 years with Omni, is looking for a new management job, according to his LinkedIn profile, which lists him as "currently unemployed." Other managers scattered to new jobs.

Bethel Native Corp. is looking for a retail operator for most of the now-shuttered new Swanson's. It is seeking to open a liquor store on the second floor, a proposal that has met with widespread community opposition. A community meeting on liquor sales in Bethel is set for Monday evening at the cultural center.

Three Bears representatives spoke with Bethel Native Corp. years ago but nothing came of it. There haven't been recent talks, Mierop said.

Lisa Demer

Lisa Demer was a longtime reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch News. Among her many assignments, she spent three years based in Bethel as the newspaper's western Alaska correspondent. She left the ADN in 2018.

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