Bi-Mart Sells West Eugene Warehouse to Lanz Cabinets for Expansion

Brent Lanz, a Eugene real estate developer and businessman best known for his cabinet-manufacturing business, has purchased the vacant warehouse complex at 645 Seneca Road in West Eugene from employee-owned Bi-Mart Corp., a big property: nearly 100,000 square feet of 65-year-old buildings on seven acres valued at nearly $7 million.

Lanz Cabinets needs the warehouse for expansion, says the company's president, Kyle Bressler. The property sits next to the Lanz Cabinets factory on West 7th Avenue. "We've outgrown our footprint, and we are growing our services," Bressler says. The company has about 300 employees at its Eugene facility, and plans to add 60-90 employees over the coming year as part of an expansion. The adjacent Lanz Cabinets factory totals about 165,000 square feet on nine acres, making the 645 Seneca Road acquisition a natural extension of the company's existing West Eugene campus.

The sale appears to be part of the retrenchment Bi-Mart announced in January, when it said it was closing its five-store Cascade Farm & Outdoor division. The warehouse, at 645 Seneca Road, was Cascade Farm's corporate office/storage facility, records show. The Cascade Farm outlet on Main Street in Springfield's Thurston area closed last week. It was the only Cascade Farm store in Lane County.

Bi-Mart bought the Seneca Road warehouse complex in 2003. In 2021, the same year it sold its pharmacy business, Bi-Mart bought its Seneca Road headquarters building for $5.5 million, the deed shows. That headquarters sits about a half-mile north of the warehouse Lanz purchased, and Bi-Mart also owns a large warehouse that backs onto the headquarters property.

The Seneca Road sale represents one of the more significant assets Bi-Mart has put on the market. The company has 78 Bi-Mart stores across Oregon, Washington and Idaho, but holds relatively little real estate outright. In Lane County, Bi-Mart operates 11 stores but owns the property of just one of them, at 5744 Main Street in Springfield. The company sold its Junction City store property in 2018 for $3.45 million and stayed on as a tenant.

Earlier this month Bi-Mart closed its Vancouver, Washington store, telling the news media the store wasn't profitable enough. But the chain is "healthy and strong," and will open two new Bi-Marts this year, one in Hood River, taking space formerly occupied by a Cascade Farm store, and the other in Seaside, the company said.

Brent Lanz has built a substantial real estate portfolio. Aside from the Lanz Cabinets factory complex, Lanz holdings include the Alder Springs apartment complex he built in Eugene in 2019; the Maple Springs apartment complex he built in Junction City in 2024; and land next to Maple Springs for an additional planned apartment complex, Aspen Springs. Lanz is also developing the West Gate Industrial Park in West Eugene. In 2022, he bought, for an undisclosed sum, an old 80-acre wood products mill, which he's carved into lots for sale. Late last year, West Gate made its first sale: a seven-acre parcel to Alsco, a Utah-based uniform supply and cleaning company.

For Lanz Cabinets, which has been manufacturing in Eugene for over six decades, the warehouse next door represents room to grow into a demand base that already stretches across the western United States.