MINNEAPOLIS, MN - Roundy’s is officially exiting the Twin Cities market with the closure of its 9 remaining Rainbow stores.

Until this point, Roundy’s was still looking for buyers for these last remaining stores. However, James Hyland, a spokesman for Milwaukee-based Roundy's, confirmed Monday that "the last public shopping day for the nine stores not in the sales agreement will be tomorrow, July 22, 2014," according to the TwinCities.com Pioneer Press. Hyland added, "There were no buyers, so the stores are being closed."

This news comes after Roundy’s sold 18 Rainbow stores to a group of local grocery retailers, including Supervalu, in a $65 million deal in attempts to fully exit the Minneapolis/St. Paul market. To read more on this story, click here for our previous article.

Though no buyers have shown interest yet, supermarket analyst David Livingston believes that the closure could possibly lead to nonunion grocers looking into the properties, according to the Pioneer Press.

“They have union contracts, and if a nonunion operator wants to take time over, they need to be closed for a certain period of time to break the union contract,” said Livingston.  “So maybe a nonunion operator is going to buy them, but they just can’t do it yet.”

Supervalu has already started its conversion of the 18 Rainbow stores that it acquired from Roundy's last May.  10 of the 18 locations are converting to Cub Food stores and two others into Byerly's. The final 6 locations will remain Rainbow stores.  For more information on the conversion, check out our previous article by clicking here.

For now, we’ll have to wait and see if any buyers show interest in the properties.  Stay tuned to AndNowUKnow for further updates.

Roundy’s