Another big box retailer is coming to Silverdale. Best Buy, the nation’s leading retailer of specialty consumer electronics, will move into the store being abandoned by Fred Meyer on Ridgetop Boulevard between Mickelberry and Myhre roads. Fred Meyer will officially close at 10 p.m. on Saturday, May 19.

Just as auto dealers and fast food outlets tend to cluster in the same areas, it appears that particular stretch of road is becoming Kitsap’s Consumer Electronics Row. When Best Buy moves into the 45,000-square-foot building this fall, it will be within sight of competitors The Good Guys, Circuit City and Costco.

Best Buy spokeswoman Connie Stelter said the new store will hire somewhere between 100 to 150 full and part-time employees this summer before it opens. She also said the store is scheduled to open sometime in the Fall, although no definite opening date has been set.

Based in Eden Prairie, Minn., Best Buy operates more than 400 retail outlets in 41 states. In a growth mode, the chain plans to expand to 550 stores nationwide by 2004.

Silverdale is not exactly a new discovery to Best Buy however. The retailer also owns Magnolia Hi-Fi, which has an outlet there, and since it acquired Musicland Corp. last year, it owns both the Sam Goody music store and Suncoast video store located in Kitsap Mall.

According to Fred Meyer spokesman Rob Boley, the company announced in late February it was looking for a tenant to assume its Silverdale lease. Terms of the leasing arrangement with Best Buy were not disclosed.

Fred Meyer moved into the former Food Pavilion store in 1996. That was before it was acquired by Kroger, the nation’s largest retail grocery chain. However, the Fred Meyer Marketplace, which is a smaller version of its full-size stores, offered neither the variety — nor showed the profits — of its larger stores.

Fred Meyer notified its 80 Silverdale employees of the Best Buy deal almost as soon as the ink was dry on the lease. Boley said that all the employees will be transferred to other Fred Meyer stores — most likely the East Bremerton and Port Orchard stores — with no loss of seniority, although they may be placed in other jobs.