Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Williams Market building sold

New owners still developing plans


By EXPRESS STAFF
Express Staff Writer

The old Williams Market building on Main Street in Ketchum has just sold after being vacant for two years. The selling price for the building, which was a grocery store for 12 years, was not disclosed but the asking price was $6,750,000.Express file photo

In a real estate sale concluded under the media radar screen, the old Williams Market building on Main Street in Ketchum has changed hands.

ASJ, Ltd. of Texas sold the single-story building with basement to VPI, a Ketchum-based development company, said listing agent Paul Kenny of the Colliers International real estate group in Ketchum. Neither Kenny nor David Hutchinson, president of VPI, would disclose the selling price. The asking price was $6,750,000, Kenny said. The building contains about 14,000 square feet of space.

It sold a couple of months ago after being on the market for two years.

Chris Williams, now a Hailey CPA, owned and operated the grocery store for 12 years until it closed in 2005 when, Williams said, he reached an impasse on the lease.

Hutchinson said the building was purchased by a partnership.

"At this point, we don't have a plan," Hutchinson responded when asked what his group had in store for the high-profile building. "We have no idea what we are going to do."

He said his company completed the transaction "because we thought we could do something good with it at some point."

Williams said he misses running a grocery store.

"It was fun," he said. He said other grocers "kicked the tires" in considering the location for their stores but nothing happened.

Kenny said he talked to both the Whole Foods and Wild Oats chains and spent two years trying to lease the property to another grocer without success.

"It's a tough market here," he said.




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