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The former New Seasons Market in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood. (GeekWire File Photo / Todd Bishop)
The physical grocery landscape in Seattle is taking another turn in a space once connected to Amazon.
A former New Seasons Market in the Ballard neighborhood, which closed in 2019, is slated to become the location of a new H Mart, The Seattle Times reported, citing a new state liquor license application.
Permits connected Amazon to the location starting in early 2021 when filings showed the tech giant was doing electrical improvements on the space. In January 2023, a City of Seattle permit filing for a boiler or pressure vessel inspection used the name “Amazon Market” for the location for the first time.
The name raised suspicion that Amazon might have another grocery format in the works.
But over the last two years, the site has remained shuttered and Amazon did not add a new retail wrinkle to its ever-evolving physical grocery footprint. Amazon actually used the location to test grocery-related technology, and the company has now subleased it, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Amazon has been tweaking its grocery format for the last couple years, removing “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from large grocery stores and closing some smaller Fresh stores. Amazon also closed a Fresh pickup location in Ballard in 2023, not far from the New Seasons space.
New Seasons opened the store, at 951 NW Ballard Way, in May 2018. Its Portland-based parent company announced the closure of the store in December 2019 as part of a larger merger of regional grocery chains.
H Mart is a national Asian grocery chain with locations across the Seattle area, including in the University District and downtown. The company started in Queens, N.Y., in 1982 and has grown to more than 97 stores across the U.S.
The location is part of what could be known as Grocery Alley on the east side of the Ballard neighborhood, with a Fred Meyer, PCC Natural Market and Trader Joes all within walking distance.
