Kroger Bought Its Portage Store Site in 2025. The Site Plan the City Needs Still Isn't In.

"Not many department stores (are) willing to fill that large of a space anymore," Pete Dame, Portage's chief development officer, told WOOD TV in early October. "So it solves a problem we thought we might have, but with a very solid use that I think many in the community are very excited about."

He was talking about the empty strip center on South Westnedge Avenue that used to hold Big Lots, JoAnn, Chuck E. Cheese and Rent-A-Center. Kroger now owns all of it. If the past few weeks of headlines made it sound like Kroger just showed up, the property records tell a slower story. Kroger bought most of this site in June 2025, picked up the last piece this summer, and as of early October had not filed the site plan it needs before it can apply for building permits.

The purchase is older than the headlines

WWMT ran the story on Oct. 2, 2026, citing a $10.35 million purchase on June 10. The year on that date is 2025. MLive reported the sale in August 2025. It covered a 71,250-square-foot section of the center plus the standalone Chili's building just to the west. The seller was Okemos-based Shoppes Greenwood LLC, which had paid $8.25 million for the property in July 2022.

What's new in 2026 is the north end of the building. The former JoAnn space at 6151 S. Westnedge still belonged to another owner in August 2025. WOOD reports that Kroger bought it this summer for $3.2 million, which gave the grocer the whole strip.

Laid out like that, Kroger spent more than a year putting the site together before saying anything in public. Buying the whole strip, rather than renting a slice of it, matches what the city expects it to do with the building.

A remodel, which is why Kroger needed every storefront

Dame told WOOD that Kroger came to the city after Big Lots and JoAnn closed. It asked "whether it would be feasible to put a grocery store of theirs into the entire strip mall." The property is zoned for big-box retail.

The plan as the city describes it is to reuse the building, not tear it down. "They plan to reuse the existing buildings and not start over from scratch and use the entire stretch of buildings that are adjacent to each other, but to interconnect them, remodel it, put a new face on it, and use it as a Kroger," Dame told WWMT. According to WOOD, that means mostly interior demolition to take out the walls between the old storefronts and a new facade that looks "like your typical Kroger would." Dame also said the store would probably have a drive-thru pharmacy lane.

That explains the JoAnn purchase. A store built by knocking down interior walls needs every unit in the row, and the northernmost 20,700 square feet was the last one Kroger didn't own.

The Chili's is a separate question. It sits on one of Kroger's parcels, across a large parking lot from the strip, and Dame told WOOD he doesn't know what Kroger plans to do with it. As of this month, the Chili's location page for 6195 S. Westnedge still lists operating hours. Rent-A-Center was still operating in the strip in August 2025. Its store locator now lists a Portage store at 5220 S. Westnedge, and Dame told WOOD the strip itself is vacant.

The meeting that got canceled

The next step is paperwork. WOOD reported that as of Monday, Oct. 5, Kroger had not submitted a formal site plan. Once a site plan is approved, Kroger can begin applying for building permits. It's not clear when construction might start. WWMT said the city was still waiting on that plan and didn't know when it would arrive.

Ten days later, the city's own calendar showed the same thing. The Portage Planning Commission meeting set for Thursday, Oct. 15 was canceled "due to no projects ready for review at this time." Kroger didn't answer requests for comment from WOOD, WWMT or MLive, so for now the city's descriptions are all the public has on the store's design.

So there's no opening date, and no one has announced a store format. When construction does happen, the remodel plan points to a building that changes mostly on the inside and across the front, with the same footprint and parking lot people already know.

Two grocers within a block, which Portage has seen before

If Kroger opens here, it won't be the only grocery store at this corner. FOX 17 reported that the store would share a parking lot with Aldi and sit across the street from Fresh Thyme. Going by each chain's own store locator, this is what's already on South Westnedge:

• Fresh Thyme Market, 6212 S. Westnedge Ave., open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily
• Harding's Crossroads Marketplace, 6330 S. Westnedge, open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily
• Meijer, 5121 S. Westnedge Ave., open 6 a.m. to midnight daily
• ALDI, 5070 S. Westnedge Ave., open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, the location farther north on the corridor
• Pacific Rim Foods, an Asian grocery a short turn off Westnedge at 229 W. Kilgore Road, open 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. seven days a week

Dame isn't worried about crowding, and his reason is local. "When I grew up here, there was a Kroger there in the Southland Mall and a Harding's," he told WWMT. "So, there were two grocery stores almost right next to each other." If this store gets built, that stretch of Westnedge would again have a Kroger and a Harding's close together, decades after the first time.

The business with the most riding on the timeline may be one that's been in that lot all along. Jackie Dutton owns Antique Kitchen, which shares the parking lot with the Kroger property. "Whenever they're open, we have a lot more business. Foot traffic, you know. They're already in the parking lot," she told FOX 17. FOX 17 reported that this traffic has been missing since the other stores in the strip closed.

How far you drive for a Kroger today

According to MLive, most Southwest Michigan Kroger stores had closed by the end of the 1980s, and the region's last one, in Sturgis, closed in November 2020. The nearest Krogers are now in Jackson and Lansing. Kroger had about 120 stores in Michigan as of August 2025, mostly in Southeast Michigan. WOOD reported this month that none of the chain's Michigan stores are in West Michigan.

The Portage purchase came at an odd moment for the chain. In June 2025, the same month it closed on the Westnedge property, Kroger said it would close 60 underperforming stores over 18 months. It also planned to open at least 30 new stores that year and to speed up openings in "high-growth geographies" the next year, as MLive reported. Spending $13.55 million in two transactions to own an entire Portage strip, at a time when the company was cutting stores elsewhere, says Kroger is serious about this site. The site plan will show when it means to build.

What to watch from here

This is the order of events the city has described so far. The first item is the one to keep an eye on.

1. The site plan. Kroger has to file one with the city. The Oct. 15 cancellation shows it wasn't ready by mid-October.
2. Review. Once a plan arrives, watch the Planning Commission listings on the city calendar. That's where a Kroger item would likely show up.
3. Building permits. WOOD reported that Kroger can begin applying for these once the site plan is approved.
4. The Chili's building. It's on Kroger's land and is still open for now. A site plan would be the first public document likely to show what Kroger intends for it.

Kroger hasn't given a timeline, so any opening date you hear before step one happens is a guess.

If you own a home near South Westnedge and wonder how 16 months of an empty strip mall and a possible Kroger anchor figure into your home's value, Atwood Properties Group can give you a straight local read. Get your instant home valuation, and we'll keep an eye on the city calendar so you don't have to.