Safeway to close Argonne store in Spokane Valley

One of Spokane Valley’s Safeway stores is closing.

The store at 1441 N. Argonne Road will shut its doors for the last time on March 4.

Tairsa Worman, communications manager for Safeway’s corporate office in Bellevue, said in an email that the 60 people who work at the store will be offered an opportunity to transfer to other Safeway locations.

The store is closing because the lease on the property is up and Safeway is not renewing it, Worman wrote, adding that the closure is not connected to the recent merger of Safeway and Albertsons. The store is located in a strip mall at the intersection of Argonne and Mission Avenue, just south of Interstate 90.

“Today there are no plans to close any of our other stores,” Worman wrote.

In Liberty Lake, Safeway and Albertsons both have stores on Liberty Lake Road and some worried either store would close after the merger.

However, the Liberty Lake Safeway has been purchased by the Bellingham-based grocery chain, Haggen, and will transition to that brand this summer.

As part of their merger, Albertsons and Safeway agreed to get rid of 168 stores to satisfy federal antitrust regulators.

Haggen is acquiring 146 of those stores – located from the Canadian border to Southern California – making it one of the major grocery retailers on the West Coast.