Mitchells Harvest Foods, which has operated a grocery store in Cheney for nearly 30 years, says it plans to build a grocery store in the Suncrest area. It said its purchase of land for the store included a buyout of the Suncrest Supermart, the only grocery store currently serving the Suncrest area, which ultimately will close.


David Moczulski, whose family operates two other Mitchells Harvest Foods stores in the region through a corporation called Country Counter Corp., says the companys planned Suncrest store will be its first entirely new outlet. It will have an estimated 34,000 square feet of floor space, will employ between 30 and 50 people, and will sell gasoline onsite, Moczulski says.


Moczulski referred questions about the cost of the project to Mike Winger, vice president of new store development for URM Stores Inc., which operates the Harvest Foods co-op, of which Mitchells is a member. Winger says it could cost up to $7 million to build, equip, and stock a new store of the size that Country Counter plans to erect. Winger says based on similar projects, the structure and parking lot could cost close to $4.5 million, and it typically would cost about $2 million more to equip such a store and $600,000 to buy inventory before opening.


Moczulski says the company will seek bids for construction of the store soon, and anticipates opening the outlet by next June. URM, the big Spokane-based grocers cooperative and grocery distributor, is providing design services for the project, he says.


The store will be constructed on a five-acre vacant piece of land at the northwest corner of state Route 291 and Swenson Road that Country Counter has bought from James Jeb Bowell.


The Moczulskis also have bought Bowells Suncrest Supermart, which is located about a half-mile away at the Suncrest Outpost shopping center, in the same transaction, and will become the leaseholder of that businesss location. Bowell will continue to operate the Suncrest Supermart until the Mitchells Harvest Foods store opens, he says.


One thing we wanted to do was get a mutual agreement with the current business owner, Moczulski says. Though he declines to disclose the terms, he says its beneficial for both parties.


Country Counter is mulling what to do with the space there after the Suncrest Supermart closes. Moczulski says the company might operate a different type of store in that spot.


Along with David, other family members involved in the grocery store enterprise include his parents Mitchell and Mary Jane, brothers Steven and Jerry, and sister Robin. The family opened the Cheney store, at 116 W. First in 1979, and the Mitchells Harvest Foods store in Priest River in the early 1990s.


URM is owned by independent grocers who buy much of their inventory from the cooperative. Moczulski says his familys company joined the URM and Harvest Foods co-ops about five years ago.


There are about 30 independently owned stores in the Harvest Foods co-op.