Canadian Billionaire Buys Second Bay Area Supermarket Site

Canadian billionaire Jim Pattison has paid $18.3 million for a Lucky supermarket site in Concord in an all-cash transaction.

This price was 11.6 percent higher than the property’s January 2024 assessed value of $16.4 million, according to the San Jose Mercury News. The 61,000-square-foot supermarket, located at 5190 Clayton Road, is Pattison’s second Bay Area supermarket purchase this year.

In January, Jim Pattison Developments U.S., part of the billionaire’s diversified conglomerate, paid $24.3 million in cash for a Lucky California supermarket site in southwest San Jose.

At a time of rising trade tensions between the U.S. and Canadian, players from the north continue to invest in real estate in warmer climates. Earlier this month, Axia GeoCapital in Ontario, led by Nickolas Georghiades, bought an office building in Boca Raton, Florida for $20.6 million. And Toronto-based Brookfield is looking to invest in development projects south of the U.S.-Canadian border, despite the firm’s heavy losses in U.S. office buildings.

Jim Pattison Developments, founded in 2006, is a subsidiary of The Jim Pattison Group, the company founded by Pattison in 1961. Often compared to Warren Buffett, the 96-year-old Pattison is known for his vast investments across multiple industries.

Headquartered in Vancouver, The Jim Pattison Group primarily operates in the United States and Canada. Its holdings include divisions which include automotive, advertising, media, agricultural equipment, food and beverage, entertainment, exporting, financial, real estate, and periodical distribution industries.

The holding company has 50,000 employees and notches $16 billion in annual sales, according to its website.

The grocery business has been strained in the Bay Area.

Safeway planned to shutter its Pinole store this month.

Safeway in San Francisco’s Fillmore District was slated to close in February.

Country Sun Natural Foods closed its doors in Palo Alto in late 2023 after five decades in business.

— Joel Russell