The vacant building and greenhouses once occupied by Pioneer West Garden and Pet Center in downtown Centralia are now once again being filled with plants and gardening supplies as the Fernseed Plant & Flower Shop held its soft opening this week.
Located at 710 N. Tower Ave., Fernseed Centralia is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. While the garden center is still being set up, it is due to be open by this weekend, according to Fernseed owner Katherine Raz, who spoke with The Chronicle at the newly opened business on Tuesday, Oct. 27.
The business’s grand opening is set for Nov. 7 and 8, with giveaways of gifts and special prizes along with discounts for customers to celebrate. Additionally, the Fernseed flower delivery service is set to start by next week.
“We do all of our florals. We’re not a wire service. We don’t pull orders from FTD or 1-800-Flowers. All of our flowers are designed in-house and we source everything as locally as possible within the season. We’re part of this movement called the Slow Flowers Movement,” Raz said.
Founded by Debra Prinzing, the Slow Flowers Movement focuses on encouraging local flower shops to avoid sourcing imported flowers from other countries. Raz added she’s already contacted a group of local Centralia flower growers and hopes to have bouquets for sale sourced almost entirely locally by next spring.
A Lakewood resident, Raz opened the first Fernseed in Tacoma in 2019 as an indoor plant and pottery shop. She expanded to add cut flowers during the COVID pandemic. After moving into another storefront in south Tacoma in 2020, by 2025, Raz had been successful enough and tried to purchase the property she was renting for Fernseed at the time.
“But they wanted $1.5 million for the building, even though they bought it for $480,000 in the same year we moved in,” Raz said. “The reality of a business this size is it doesn’t make sense to run unless you own the real estate. A business like this, with the margins, you’re really making an investment in commercial real estate at the same time as running a cool business and bringing something to the community. But we really were faced with a lot of challenges with trying to acquire commercial property in Tacoma.”
After getting involved with Main Street America program — a nationwide nonprofit focused on historical preservation and economic revitalization of downtown districts, which the Centralia Downtown Association (CDA) is a part of — Raz decided to draw a circle from where she lived to include cities she could drive to in under an hour, with a downtown district, a Main Street association and affordable commercial property.
Luckily, Centralia fell just within that hour commute at about 55 minutes away.
“I just kept looking all the time for real estate that came available, and I found the Pioneer West property,” Raz said.
The Pioneer West property became vacant after the business moved to the Centralia Outlets in 2025, citing a rise in local crime and deteriorating conditions on North Tower Avenue. Pioneer West’s Centralia Outlets location has since permanently closed as of last March.
Over the past two years, though, the CDA has been working to clean up the area and revitalize businesses on North Tower Avenue. And other businesses have since been venturing into the area, such as Cosmic Tattoo, which moved from South to North Tower Avenue and opened an expanded tattoo parlor next to The Cluttered Closet Boutique, which just expanded at the end of 2024. Other businesses on North Tower have also repainted and cleaned their storefronts recently, and now Fernseed joins them in the northern downtown district.
While the original Fernseed is still open in Tacoma, Raz is relieved to be able to own the property for Fernseed Centralia.
“That’s the hill that I die on. I have an entire Substack that I write that’s about running an independent retail business and the challenges — especially since the 90s and banking deregulation, just some of the systemic issues that face everyone in the middle class and everyone who’s not a billionaire,” Raz said. “It impacts people trying to run other independent businesses as well, restaurants, coffee shops, cafes. Back in the day, people used to own the buildings, and that is what made it sustainable over time. As itinerate businesses and as renters, you’re not really making that investment, at the same time as you’re pouring your literal blood, sweat and tears into a business … You’re a victim of your own success. Because it’s actually the rent you pay that increases the value of the building, and the way that banks lend to anyone that’s looking to purchase commercial property is based on the projected revenues in that property. For an investor, it’s much easier to project rental income, especially if the rent is high.”
Despite being successful in purchasing the former location of Pioneer West, Raz stated there were still a lot of challenges in completing the purchase. Raz also acknowledged that owning the property was no guarantee of success.
She added it was worth it, though, as owning the actual property she runs the business out of helps her feel more rooted in the new community.
“I’ve spent a lot of time here now, and I love it here. I keep telling people if my kids weren’t enrolled in school in Lakewood, I’d really seriously be considering just getting a little apartment just down the road,” Raz said.
To learn more about Fernseed, visit its website at https://thefernseed.com/ or follow the business on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thefernseed.
