Idaho Firm Buys Former Baker City Safeway for $2.8 Million

A Caldwell, Idaho company that picked up Baker City's vacant Rite Aid building last fall has now acquired the adjacent former Safeway grocery store on Campbell Street, paying $2.8 million for the 35,862-square-foot property on Feb. 27, according to Baker County Assessor's Office records.

MSBR LLC, the Idaho corporation behind both purchases, now controls nearly two-thirds of an acre of vacant commercial space at 1205 and 1217 Campbell St. Safeway closed in May 2025 and Rite Aid followed a month later, leaving both buildings dark for the better part of a year before the company completed its second acquisition.

Idaho corporation records list Mark R. Schmitt as MSBR LLC's manager. Schmitt is identified on D&B Supply's website as that company's president, and MSBR's registered address is the same as D&B Supply's. The farm and ranch supply chain already operates a Baker City location at 3515 Pocahontas Road.

The Safeway building, constructed in 1977, carried a real market value of $2,046,360 based on a 2020 Baker County appraisal. MSBR paid $753,640 above that figure. The Rite Aid purchase last September, a bankruptcy court sale, tells a similar story in reverse: MSBR paid $1.7 million for a building the assessor valued at $1,898,850 as of 2020, acquiring it at a discount.

Combined, the two buildings total more than 66,800 square feet. The Rite Aid structure, 30,966 square feet and built in 1991, sits at 1217 Campbell St., directly beside the larger Safeway parcel.

No representative of MSBR LLC or D&B Supply had commented publicly on plans for either property as of Wednesday. A company official was working to arrange an interview after being contacted by the Baker City Herald.

Local officials offered measured optimism when the first sale closed. "Someone realized it had value and was willing to pay a lot of money for it," said Bryan Tweit, Baker County's contracted economic developer, after the Rite Aid deal in September 2025. Baker City Manager Barry Murphy echoed that sentiment at the time: "The city is excited to see what the new owner will do with this property which is in a key area of our commercial zone."

With MSBR now holding both parcels, attention will turn to whether the company files development plans with the city or pursues tenants for the combined footprint on one of Baker City's primary commercial corridors.