Changes to note this week are mostly negative. PacAve lost its only Michelin-rated restaurant when Alderwood Pacific closed its doors a few months ago.
Now the original Alderwood on Cedar Street has also closed, leaving a high-end void in the local restaurant scene.
The closing of New Leaf Market last October left Trader Joe's as the only downtown grocery store, and it seems unlikely that the next tenant in that space will come from the grocery business.
Meanwhile, there are three big departures in PacAve retail. The closure of chain-clothier Forever 21 has been expected since the 2021 bankruptcy announcement, but two other closings are more surprising. The downtown surf-style clothing shop of the local O'Neill company is shutting down, as is its competitor across Pacific, Rip Curl. A third surf-style store remains on that corner - Pacific Wave (pictured above).
Those large retail and restaurant empty spaces join many others (some of them brand new) along PacAve and elsewhere downtown, and so may be hard to fill.
One bright spot: as PacAve stores selling new clothing close, a number of used-clothing stores have opened, including Freestyle Clothing Exchange, which opened last year in the same building that O'Neill is leaving.
