The demands of north Redondo residents will soon be met. A new grocery store will be moving into the vacant space left by the Haggen grocery store at the corner of Artesia Boulevard and Rindge Lane.
During his 2017 State of the City address Friday morning, Mayor Steve Aspel announced that CVS and Grocery Outlet, a Northern California-based grocery chain that appears to be quickly expanding throughout the Los Angeles metro area, will share the space left vacant when Haggen declared bankruptcy in late 2015.
Grocery Outlet markets itself as a “discount grocery” supermarket. This will be the first Grocery Outlet in the South Bay. The two nearest stores are in Long Beach and Compton.
Aspel was quick to give Councilwoman Laura Emdee a lion’s share of the credit for finding a tenant for the long-vacant space.
“She’s taken two districts under her wing,” Aspel said.
Emdee, however, said that she was doing little different than what Councilman Steve Sammarco, who represents that area, had been doing.
“I did the same thing as Sammarco was doing. We kept calling, checking in, and advocating,” Emdee said. In past months, Emdee and Sammarco have both noted that they’ve reached out to businesses from across the retail spectrum, such as Stater Bros. Market, Vons or Orchard Supply Hardware, but could not find the right fit. “We sent out letters to a bunch of different places, trying to follow up to try and make these things happen.”
Sammarco has not yet responded to a request for comment. However, according to The Beach Reporter, Sammarco was unaware that a deal was forthcoming, and called the timing of the deal “electioneering” by Emdee and Aspel.
“I’ve been working on this for months, I’ve gotten no help, no calls, no nothing for anything,” Sammarco said. “I found out about this from one of the parents walking home from school this morning.”
However, according to Emdee, there had been “rumblings in City Hall over the last few weeks that Grocery Outlet was close to a deal.”
According to Redondo Beach Community Development Director Aaron Jones, the City only learned last night from CVS and Grocery Outlet representatives that they could make the announcement in the Mayor’s State of the City address.
Site plans have already been filed, Jones said, and he and planning staff will work to expedite permitting processes in order to get the store online as soon as possible.
“It’s already [zoned] as retail commercial and the former use is similar, so we expect they could be open as early as this summer,” Jones said. “Maybe three to six months, depending on the construction and improvement processes.”
