26 April 2013 (15:46 UTC-07 Tango)/15 Jumada t-Tania 1434/06 Ordibehest 1391/17 Bing-Chen (3rd month) 4711

Our local southeast Idaho news media has done a piss-poor job of keeping historical records of the area, and many newbies to the area have false ideas about when things happened.

I’ve read some postings that say the Old Fred Meyer and the Albertsons grocery store, both on Yellowstone Avenue in Pocatello, Idaho, closed down in the 1990s.  Not true.

Those stores were located on what’s called Alameda Plaza.  Alameda Plaza is one of several prime examples of the decline of the local economy, which is still in decline, despite the new WinCo being built there.

The economic decline can be traced to Simplot moving its corporate HQ from Pocatello to Boise in 1998-99, and the city of Pocatello and county of Bannock refusing to go along with Union Pacific’s plan to make Pocatello the Pacific Northwest depot for their rail operations.  Then came the 2001 demise of Astaris-FMC’s mining operations killing at least 3-hundred jobs (which I remember well because employees were calling into a local radio news show trying to leak news of the closing, but the radio announcer actually chastised the callers for spreading such rumors, then a few months later no more FMC!), Ballard Medical moving its factory to Mexico, ON Semiconductor taking over AMI.  All these things, and more, took place between 1999 and 2007.

Back to Alameda Plaza. There were other stores in the plaza like Little Caesar’s pizza, a Chinese food buffet and a movie theater.

The Alameda Plaza Triplex opened in the 1970s.  In 1995 it was bought by the same guy that owns the Carmike theaters in the Chubbuck, Pine Ridge Mall area (until 1995 he had only the one cinema, Carmike Cinema 7, near the Pine Ridge Mall, and it wasn’t part of the mall property although the mall got a lot of complaints from people who thought it was).  The Alameda Plaza Triplex was closed around 2005 when the owner built the new Pineridge 10 Cinemas on the north end of the mall property. The Triplex was then used as a church until about 2012, then torn down to make room for the new WinCo.

The banks are still there (actually only the Wells Fargo is on Alameda Plaza proper, the Key Bank is a separate property).

Alameda Plaza in Pocatello, and the Pine Ridge Mall in Chubbuck, were both owned by Price Development Corporation (aka J. Price).  I worked the property management side for J. Price from 2001 to 2003.  During 2003, J. Price sold the properties to GGP (General Growth Properties).  Those properties included the Grand Teton Mall in Idaho Falls, and the Boise Town Square in Boise.  I worked for GGP until 2005.

By 2000 Fred Meyer had moved out of the Alameda Plaza location into the old Pocatello Mall location (I remember we used to rent out the empty old Fred Meyer building to boat and RV shows), but the Alameda Plaza Alberstons was still in operation, along with Little Caeser’s and the Triplex theater.

Those of us working in property management could see first hand evidence of a crashing economy.  In 1998, the Chubbuck Pine Ridge Mall was packed all the time (it’s amazing how many people called it the Pocatello Mall, and how many people still think it’s in Pocatello)!  That big mall parking lot was almost full every Friday and Saturday.

When I started working for J. Price, in 2001, the ‘traffic’ at the mall was so busy mall management had to hire extra part time workers during summer, mainly high school-ers and college students, just to keep the parking lot and mall interior clean.

By 2002 customer traffic had dropped off, enough that they cut back on summer hires.  By 2003 mall management stopped hiring extra summer time help, there was no need because customer traffic was down by more than half.

Anchor store Macy’s and ZCMI left.  ZCMI occupied the two story anchor, and they had a full two story operation, not like the new pathetic Herbergers.   ZCMI was replaced by May, which was quickly turned into a Dillards.  They were true two story operations, but didn’t last long.

A little diversion here; during 2002 Pine Ridge Mall got a phone call saying there was a bomb in the mall.  I spotted a large garbage bag near the south entrance to Macy’s, a Chubbuck cop said it matched the description in the bomb call.  We evacuated the mall. Most of the tenants and customers thought we were bullshitting them, until they saw the cops swarming in.  Later that evening it was determined that the bomb was inert (no explosives).  A couple weeks later arrests were made.  The bomb scare was a False Flag by some would be bank robbers, who chickened out on robbing the bank.  One of them got drunk at a party and spilled the beans, and was turned in by some of the party goers.  You know, the city of Chubbuck and Pocatello didn’t get ‘locked down’ and the only federales to get involved were the FBI, and they kept a low profile.  And we didn’t have any gottdamned paramilitary cops shoving their M4s in our faces like in Boston Strong Massachusetts!

We don’t mess around out here, example: In March 2013 a mentally unstable man tried to take hostages at the Chubbuck Petco.  A Bannock County Sheriff’s deputy ended that real fast with a single gunshot to his neck, and he had the help of the Petco employees:  “….Once Mr. Wilson had left the store with the hostage, this worker had the presence of mind, despite what was going on, to shut the front doors and lock them so they couldn’t get back in……We’re just grateful that a lot of good common sense was used here.”-Randy Severe, Chubbuck Police Chief

You hear that Boston Strong Massachusetts? “Commen sense”, not paranoid police state-ism!

Back to the economy.  At one point the vacant Macy’s was rented out to local operation Party Palace (which was against GGP’s policy of not renting out to local operations, but GGP was getting desperate), but they moved on as well.  The KB Toys store was closed almost without notice (having become the victim of Mitt Romney and his vulture capitalist buddies).

Over at the Alameda Plaza, we knew that once Fred Meyer moved into their new location across the street, the other tenants would be leaving as well.  J. Price and GGP had tried to attract many retailers to the Pine Ridge Mall, and Alameda Plaza, but the potential tenants ran their own economic surveys of the area and almost all concluded it wasn’t worth it to set up shop in Pocatello or Chubbuck.

The new Fred Meyer location included a Golden Corral, Gottschalks and Honk’s.  The Golden Corral was too much competition for the crappy JJ North’s buffet at the south end of the Pine Ridge Mall property, and they went bust (along with the JJ North’s on the Grand Teton Mall property).

Back at the new Fred Meyer plaza, the Gottschalks didn’t last long as the California based company went bust.  Great Harvest bread store closed down their operation, and Idaho based Honk’s went bankrupt in January 2013.  The Pocatello Honk’s closed without notice, and what I find interesting is that the Boise news media reported that Honk’s was not closing any of their stores!

Also, there was a Smith’s grocery store across the street from the new Fred Meyer location.  Smith’s was closed as the new Fred Meyer had groceries (the old one did not), and both Fred Meyer and Smith’s are owned by the same company.

About the same time the Chubbuck Walmart expanded to a ‘super’ Walmart with groceries.

In 2004 GGP contracted out our jobs.  The contractor offered no benefits and cut my pay by $1.00 per hour, and also wanted me to become the official Night Shift Supervisor!  90% of the former J. Price employees were there because they needed the medical benefits, so GGP really screwed them over!  In 2006 I took a job with Idaho State University Stores, as a warehouse assistant.

In 2009 GGP went bankrupt.  Alameda Plaza was turned over to The Howard Hughes Corporation (a subsidiary of GGP).  In 2012 the City of Pocatello split Alameda Plaza into five zones.

After years wishing for a bigger WinCo in Pocatello, they finally made the move by taking over the old Fred Meyer Alameda Plaza location.  WinCo number 117 is at least three times bigger than the original WinCo number five, and twice as big as the old Fred Meyer building.

As far as the Alameda Plaza Albertsons goes, they held on until about 2005 (they did not close down in the 1990s as some on the internet say).  Since 2006, Albertsons has been passed around to several new owners (despite the website making it look like it’s still owned by the Albertsons family):  A Minnesota based company called Supervalue, an affiliate of evil Cerberus Capital Management called AB Acquisition, and CVS.  Finally in January 2013 evil Cerberus Capital Management became sole owner (I wouldn’t be surprised if they liquidate).

Over at the Pine Ridge Mall in Chubbuck, Sears is getting ready to close down.  Sears was originally located in the old Pocatello Mall.  In 1999 it was the last store to leave the Pocatello Mall, moving into the Pine Ridge Mall (if I remember correctly, the Pine Ridge Mall opened in 1982).

My whole point is that to anyone just moving into the area, what you are witnessing is an economic decline, not growth.  Some newbies must be coming from areas of the country where the economy is worse, because they think things are good here.

The boom time was in the 1990s.  Everything started going down hill in 1999.  Even with a new Fred Meyer, expanded Walmart and now new WinCo the area’s net job ‘growth’ is zero, at the very most!

State economists were saying things were looking up, but that’s because they compare it from month to month or year to year.  If you look at what’s happened in Bannock County from the 1990s ’til now, it is economic decline.

Now the state economists are worried, because data shows that people are leaving the Gem State because they can’t find decent paying jobs.  At least 2-thousand 6-hundred people have left since December 2012.  A state economist, based in Pocatello, said he is concerned because it indicates no economic recovery for Idaho.

By the way, Idaho is a Right to Work You Over state.  I wonder if that’s part of the problem, or that Idaho taxes businesses for what are normally considered write-offs and deductions (called Personal Property Tax, which is in the process of being repealed, but local governments are threatening to raise local property taxes if it’s repealed, which’ll just drive off even more people)?

By the way, the dumb city of Pocatello almost lost Fred Meyer altogether.  Fred Meyer was gonna be charged all kinds of fees by the city to move into the abandoned Pocatello Mall location.  Fred Meyer countered by threatening to pull stakes and leave Pocatello, like so many other businesses.  The city backed off.

WHAT ECONOMIC RECOVERY? POCATELLO’S HOKU PULLS STOCKS FROM NASDAQ, DE-REGISTERS WITH SEC.