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The site of a former Armenian-owned Fresno grocery store that has been vacant for more than two decades is undergoing a quiet transformation that could mark the first step in a new era for the retail space.
Hanoian’s Market located at the corner of Butler and Cedar avenues served multiple generations of Fresnans when it operated from 1956 to 2001.
Beloved by many, the store was considered one of the first major shopping facilities in southeast Fresno, according to a 1991 story published in The Fresno Bee. In addition to the grocery space, the retail center had a pharmacy, laundromat, sporting good store, barber shop, beauty salon and health food store.
A July 27, 2001, story in The Bee referred to it as a “southeast Fresno landmark.”
And the building, with its mid-century modern exterior and eight-feet high letters spelling out the family name, still attracts attention from the street and on social media.
The store is also an important part of Fresno’s Armenian history.
“The surrounding neighborhood had a lot of Armenian people,” said property manager Don Carrion. His wife, Anita, is a grandaughter of the store’s founder, Peter Hanoian Jr.
“Just about every Armenian restaurant in town went to him for their meats,” he said.
But the former grocery store has been vacant since its closure in 2001.
That’s because it’s been hard to sell or use due to contamination caused by the dry cleaning business in the retail space from the 1960s-1980s, Carrion said.
“Underneath that building is really, really contaminated with dry cleaning fluid,” he said, because the fluid seeped through the clay sewage pipes into the ground.
Now, the owners are doing major remediation work with the help of a $1.5 million grant from the State Water Board. The owners are in the process of installing new wells and a vapor extraction system to remove the contaminants from the soil.
“It’s a daunting process, but we have to do it,” Carrion said. “We can’t leave it dirty like that.”
The retail space, including five parcels totaling 54,630 square-feet, is listed for sale at $4.5 million by Realtor Chris Cammak, who said he’s talked to a number of interested buyers. But Carrion said the owners aren’t looking for buyers until the remediation work is completed.
“We’re all really hoping that it is done quickly,” he said, “But we just don’t know… once it starts pumping that stuff out of the soil, then we’ll have a better idea about what’s going on.”
Hanoian’s grocery store history
Peter Hanoian Sr. opened the family’s first grocery story in 1912 at 2454 Railroad Ave. after he relocated to Fresno from Boston, according to a 1991 Fresno Bee story. He initially opened the store as “Highway Cash Grocery.”
The website ArmeniansFresno.com said Hanoian was a native of Kharpert, a city in modern-day Turkey that was an important hub of Armenian life.
Generations of Fresnans loved the bakery, familiar service and especially the meat department.
“They always had the best, freshest meat in Fresno. That’s what they were actually known for,” said District 5 Councilmember Luis Chavez, who represents the area. Chavez worked at Hanoian’s in the mid-1990s as a cart attendant helping to unload delivery trucks.
Over the years, the store struggled to compete with smaller mom-and-pop stores in the area, gas stations and big box retailers such as Target and Walmart stores, Bob Hanoian, grandson of the original founder and then-market president, told The Bee in 2001. He was also battling cancer when he decided to close the store.
When the store closed, it was considered the longest surviving family-owned market in Fresno, according to The Bee’s archives. The family’s grocery business operated for about 89 years and was managed by multiple generations of the Hanoian family. (The family liquor store remained open until 2017.)
“Hanoians is definitely part of my Armenian heritage. My family cried when they closed,” said one member of the “Historically Fresno” Facebook group.
Potenial future for former Hanoian’s?
Edith Marquez lives across the street from the vacant Hanoian’s Market. While she never shopped there — she moved to Fresno from Los Angeles after it had already closed — she’s always wondered why it’s empty.
The retail space has a great location due to the busy intersection and three nearby schools: Vang Pao Elementary, Sequioa Middle School and Roosevelt High.
Marquez would love to see the site transformed into a place with businesses and community spaces catering to teens who don’t have many places to go when they’re waiting for their parents to get off of work, such as a library, bookstore, park, ice cream shop or snack spot.
For now, she’s worried about her kids walking alone to school nearby because the lot often attracts homeless people.
“It’s a wasted space,” she told The Bee in Spanish.
Carrion hopes another supermarket opens on the spot because the closest is a Vallarta Supermarket on Chestnut and Butler Avenues, about one mile east.
And as for the iconic mid-century signage, “we need to make sure it stays intact,” he said.
“I think that (a mixed-used development) would be a great amenity to Fresno, where we could have the commercial (space) at the bottom and then have housing on the top,” Chavez said of the vacant space.
Whoever the future owner or developer is, Chavez said he hopes they retain the spirit and tradition of the Hanoian culture.
“Perhaps the name ‘Hanoian Square,’” he said.
