Some new life is coming to a Redding strip mall: A Baskin-Robbins and a second location for Palo Cedro’s Fresh Fire Grill. Find out which one in this week’s “Buzz on the Street” with David Benda.
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The parent company of Holiday Market has agreed to purchase the Tops grocery stores in Redding and Weaverville. North State Grocery Inc. plans to close the Tops in Redding because it’s so close to the Holiday Market in the Placer Heights center.(Photo: David Benda)Buy Photo
The return of Baskin-Robbins to Redding and a second location for Fresh Fire Grill are coming to the Raley’s-ShopKo shopping center on Lake Boulevard.
The additions are recent examples of a shopping center on the rebound as long-vacant spaces are filling up.
The strip mall welcomed a new Mexican restaurant, Raliberto’s Taco Shop, in recent months.
Both Baskin-Robbins and Fresh Fire Grill will be between Raley’s and ShopKo on the south side of the shopping center, said commercial Realtor Ken Miller, who brokered the deal.
Baskin-Robbins is expected to open in mid-June or early July. It will be between Precision Cuts and LabCorp.
More: Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin-Robbins coming to Anderson
There’s a chance the Baskin-Robbins in Redding will open before the one planned for Anderson near the North Street-Interstate 5 interchange.
It’s been nearly five years since Baskin-Robbins left the North State, closing its location at Four Corners at Churn Creek and Hartnell, a space home to J’s Ice Cream Parlor.
Miller said the chain never soured on Redding. It was just looking for the right franchisee to partner with.
Baskin-Robbins believes it found that person in Peter Patel, whose family owns the Best Western Plus Twin View Inn & Suites just off I-5 in north Redding. His family also used to operate a Baskin-Robbins in Sacramento.
“Baskin-Robbins, they are the ones who chose that location,” Patel said of the Raley’s-ShopKo site. “I have been working with them for almost two years. Their development team came in and they looked around the area and they approved that location.
“Hopefully, this Baskin-Robbins will bring some Baskin-Robbins fans back to the area.”
Meanwhile, Fresh Fire Grill is just north of the Holiday-Rite Aid shopping center on Deschutes Road in Palo Cedro. The restaurant gets a 4.8 and 4.5 on Google and Yelp, respectively.
Burgers, sandwiches, combination plates featuring Korean BBQ ribs, Hawaiian poke and teriyaki chicken are among the offerings on Fresh Fire Grill’s menu.
Fresh Fire Grill’s second location will be between A-Z Nails and Raliberto’s Taco Shop, Miller said.
Two phone messages left for Fresh Fire Grill co-owner Dave Hall were not returned.
Interest high in Tops space
Since Holiday Market purchased Tops and closed the Tops west Redding store in Sunset Marketplace in late January, interest in the former grocery store space has been high.
“I think it won’t be vacant very long, is my hope,” Chris Haedrich of Haedrich & Co. told me this week. “If it is (vacant) a long time, it’s because we want to make sure we got the right” tenant for the center and neighborhood.
Ultimately, the center’s owner will decide who goes in there, but Haedrich emphasized that Holiday, which inherited the lease on the space when it bought Tops, will be part of the conversation.
More: Holiday to buy Tops stores in Redding, Weaverville
“They have said in multiple meetings that the neighborhood does matter and it has to be something that everybody likes,” Haedrich said.
And there’s been no shortage of ideas for the vacant space, and no lack of effort on Haedrich’s part reaching out to potential tenants.
Among those he contacted are Whole Foods, Orchard Nutrition, Green Zebra Grocery, The Fresh Market, Trader Joe’s, Fred Meyer and Grocery Outlet.
But at around 17,000 square feet, for many of these grocers, the space is too small, or if they’re already in Redding, they’re hesitant to open a second location.
“It’s either too small or before we get to the discussion on size, they say a second location is not going to be helpful,” Haedrich said.
Stay tuned.
Affordability slipping
Per recent stories in the Record Searchlight, the market is tight for entry-level home buyers in Shasta County, and it sure doesn’t appear things will change anytime soon.
Shasta County’s affordability index fell in the first quarter of this year, ATTOM Data Solutions, formerly RealtyTrac, reported this week.
Affordability is based on the income it would take the average wage earner in the area to buy a median-priced home, assuming a 3 percent down payment and a 28 percent maximum “front-end” debt-to-income ratio. Wage numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
So, in Shasta County, a median-priced home was $240,000 in the first quarter, which means the annual income needed was $65,381. The problem is the average wage was $41,964, which means prices are outpacing wages, so it takes nearly 45 percent of your annual wage to purchase that $240,000 house, ATTOM said.
More: Habitat for Humanity no longer builds in Shasta County. What happened?
Nationwide, nearly 7 of every 10 housing markets are not affordable to the average-wage earner, per ATTOM Data Solutions.
Now buying a house is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor, and there are different loan programs available.
I recently asked Ken Lawrence of Silverado Mortgage to crunch some numbers for a $250,000 home, since most agree $200,000-$300,000 is the range for an entry-level home here.
Depending on the loan program, your monthly payment — it includes principal, interest, taxes and insurance — would range from $1,592 to $1,721. That’s assuming an interest rate between 4.375 percent and 4.625 percent, depending on the program, and a credit score of 760.
More: Two residents sue Shasta County to tackle housing crisis
Programs like VA and USDA require no down payment.
As for income, you would have to gross $46,800 annually to qualify for a VA loan, and approximately $58,000 for an FHA, conventional or USDA loan.
Lawrence points out that these programs are not limited to first-time buyers.
Kick in a car payment (or maybe two), utilities, food costs, school costs for the kids, etc., and for many in Shasta County, that’s a good chunk of change each month.
Reminds me of a study that Trove Technologies released last fall that said Redding ranked 18th among 20 medium-sized cities in California for discretionary income. The good news, salaries in Redding were 5.3 percent higher than the average city in the U.S., but housing expenses and non-housing expenses were 8 percent higher and 11.2 percent higher, respectively.
More: Redding builder breaks ground on housing project on Oasis Road
The average annual salary in Redding, per the study, is $46,025.
“Redding is completely unaffordable for many workers in the lower and middle wage brackets,” Michael Pao, co-founder of Trove, said in a release accompanying the study. “Our research finds that wages beat the national average by 5 percent but expenses come in at 10 percent higher than other cities.”
To check out the Trove study, go to https://www.mytrove.com/ca/redding/dir/all-occupations.
For more information on ATTOM’s latest report, go to https://bit.ly/2GYKcZy.
Reporter David Benda can be reached at 225-8219 or david.benda@redding.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidBenda_RS.
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