Farewell, Rainbow.

Tuesday, March 21, 2000

Farewell, Rainbow.

Austin’s fourth grocery store closed its doors for good over the weekend. Gone are 60 jobs and a business that miscalculated its market in this community.

Hopefully, Rainbow’s building in the Town Center development on 14th Street NW won’t remain vacant for long. Surely there is a business interested in taking over Rainbow’s payments on the building that opened a the grocery store just last summer.

What would best fill the retail space? A home store? An electronics retailer? A large-scale sporting goods store? We’ll soon find out. Hopefully, the store will have a new tenant that can add to Austin’s diverse retail mix. There’s plenty of opportunity in this community for the right retailer.

The sooner a retailer is found to fill the building, the easier it might be for Rainbow’s 60 workers to find new jobs. Austin’s unemployment rate is low so it might prove difficult for the grocery workers to gain new paychecks. Rainbow is relocating some workers to other nearby locations such as Rochester, but that may not be a viable alternative for many. There still will be dozens who will be unemployed and in search of work.

If needed, the city should be ready to step in and help find a new retailer to take over the Rainbow building. Because the sooner that happens, the sooner a ding on Austin’s economic health recovers. And that will help everyone.