Holdout homeowner agrees to sell land for new Super One store in Superior

• Super One

(File / News Tribune)

Talk about it

A plan to build a new Super One Foods in Superior’s East End will move ahead in the spring, thanks to an agreement reached with a holdout homeowner.

Property owner Michael Stranko has signed a purchase agreement that allows him to keep the home for a while longer, said Bruce Anderson, general counsel for Miner’s Inc., the company that owns Super One Foods.

Stranko is a retired firefighter who owns the last of 28 properties the company needed to make room for the Super One Foods store in the area of 22nd and 23rd Avenues east from East Second Street to the alley between East Fourth and Fifth streets.

Anderson declined to comment more specifically on the terms of the agreement. Though a closing date has not been set, Anderson said he expects the deal to move along quickly.

Mayor Bruce Hagen said Stranko’s decision to sell is a “great assistance to the community,” not only allowing Miner’s Inc. to proceed with its plans, but also creating a great opportunity for the East End business district, serving as an anchor to draw customers from Highways 2/53 to the business district on East Fifth Street.

Miner’s Inc. plans to invest

$10 million to $11 million in the new 55,000- to 60-000-square-foot building that will replace its store on East Fifth Street. About 110 people will work there when the project is complete, up from 33 employees at the current store.

The development prompted Jason Serck, Superior’s port and planning director, to postpone a meeting of the Plan Commission until Oct. 17. The commission was slated to consider closing roads and alleys in the project area, a move that would have required maintaining access to Stranko’s property midway between 22nd and 23rd avenues East on East Third Street. The house is located where the front door of the new store is expected to be.

Postponing the meeting will allow city staff to adjust the plan for vacating streets and alleys, Serck said.

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