Port of Centralia commissioners unanimously approved a purchase and sale agreement for a port-owned lot for the construction of a new Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant adjacent to the port’s Centralia Station shopping development.
Centralia Station will also feature WinCo Foods as its anchor tenant and Chipotle fast food restaurant.
The purchase and sale agreement’s approval was made during the Port of Centralia commissioners’ regular meeting on Wednesday, March 5.
“Chick-fil-A is pretty widely accepted as sort of the crown jewel for fast food restaurants,” Port of Centralia Commissioner Kyle Markstrom said. “So I applaud staff’s work and our broker’s work in securing this tenant and getting them to the table, although there’s a lot of work to be done between now and opening a store.”
Groundbreaking for the Chick-fil-A is expected to happen in late 2025, according to a news release issued by the Port of Centralia following Wednesday’s meeting.
The agreement was made with NWIW1, LLC, for 3.22 acres for the Chick-fil-A along with a possible 32-car electric vehicle charging station.
The sale price was $2,874,960.22, according to Port of Centralia Executive Director Kyle Heaton. According to the Lewis County Parcels website, the property’s assessed value was $1,122,100.
The parcel itself is located on the south side of Art Lehman Avenue along South Yew Street. NWIW1 will carry out the Chick-fil-A’s construction.
Heaton also announced a planned grand opening date for WinCo during the meeting while discussing graffiti, which has been left at the Centralia Station site while WinCo’s construction has been ongoing.
“I really want to express my appreciation to (Centralia City Manager) Michael Thomas for reaching out. When WinCo, they’re — by the way, they’re holding their grand opening on the seventh of April — they’d like the graffiti cleared up prior to that,” Heaton said.
No specific time or other details for WinCo’s grand opening were announced.
He added Thomas was working with the Washington state Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to clean up the graffiti, which was on a WSDOT right-of-way wall.
A 24-hour, employee-owned, warehouse-style grocery store chain, WinCo is the anchor tenant at Centralia Station and is expected to open on April 7, along with bringing a restaurant to the new shopping center.
WinCo will be in an 84,000-square-foot building on the Centralia Station property north of another 11,000-square-foot retail building for additional businesses and a 2,750-square-foot restaurant building for Chipotle, according to site plans.
Once construction is finished, the new shopping center “is expected to create over 500 jobs and generate $118 million in annual revenue,” the release added.
