Ridley’s picks a site for replacement supermarket in Weiser

Ten months after snow flattened a section of the Ridley’s Family Market in Weiser, the Jerome-base grocer has found a new location in the Washington County city for a bigger store.

Ridley’s expects to start construction “in a few months, probably March” next to Bi-Mart, one block off U.S. 95, on a 55,000-square-foot supermarket that will be 25,000 square feet larger than the heavily damaged store, said Mark Ridley, Ridley’s operations director.

Ridley’s will move from 2.9 acres on First Street to 5 acres on Sixth Street.

Ridley did not disclose a projected opening date or the construction cost. He said the new store will have expanded deli, bakery and produce departments.

“We will have more room to build a larger store and better parking,” he said.

A full-service hardware section will be new for the Weiser store. Weiser will be the 13^th of 31 Ridley’s Family Market’s to have a hardware section.

TAIT & Associates in Boise is the architect. A general contractor has not been selected.

“We are pleased to see they are reinvesting in the community. We appreciate that,” Weiser Mayor Diana Thomas said. “They are telling us it will be bigger with more shelves for people to look at.”

A Jan. 19 snowstorm that caused widespread regional damage caused a partial collapse at the Weiser Ridley’s, but the store reopened 13 days later on Feb. 1 in a temporary 20,000-square-foot location in a vacant King’s Variety Store building.