Uwajimaya Plans Beaverton, Ore., Store

SEATTLE - Uwajimaya, the Asian grocery and specialty merchandise store in Seattle's International District, is planning to open its first out-of-state store in Beaverton, Ore., in March.

The $4 million, 22,000-square-foot outlet will be housed in a former Best retail store, said Tomio Moriguchi, Uwajimaya's chairman. It will include a 3,000-square-foot Kinokuniya Asian bookstore. Uwajimaya also is negotiating with the owners of the Portland Bush Garden to place a Japanese restaurant in the store.

Moriguchi said Beaverton's demograhics are similar to Bellevue's, where Uwajimaya has a second store at 15555 N.E. 24th St.

Meanwhile, Moriguchi said a new and expanded Uwajimaya is under consideration for the International District. Current plans envision a 50,000-square-foot store to be built between South Weller and South Lane streets between Fifth Avenue South and Sixth Avenue South, one block south of the existing Uwajimaya. The new store would have about 100 market-rate apartments on top of it, said Moriguchi.

Engineering and feasibility studies are under way and it will be a year or two before development would begin, he said.