After a nearly ten-year absence, a grocery store may finally be returning to one of Hermosa Beach’s busiest intersections.
Lazy Acres, a natural foods market with existing locations in Long Beach and Santa Barbara, has tentatively agreed to fill a space owned by the Hope Chapel at the intersection of Artesia Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway.
The structure sits adjacent to church and currently houses the church’s teen center, which features an indoor skatepark. The site had been home to a Lucky grocery store for decades, and became an Albertsons in 1999 after the brand acquired Lucky Stores. The Albertsons closed in 2006, one of many shuttered after a corporate takeover.
Lazy Acres is the third upscale grocery store to propose a South Bay location on State Route One in the last year. July saw the announcement of plans to replace a vacant car lot on Sepulveda Boulevard and Eighth Street in Manhattan Beach with a Gelson’s, and in November, Trader Joe’s inked a deal to fill the former Ralph’s site at PCH and Aviation Boulevard. The Gelson’s proposal has generated opposition in the surrounding neighborhood.
Pastor Dale Turner of Hope Chapel said that the agreement with Lazy Acres is still preliminary and pending approval of various government agencies. However, he said there are no plans to change the square footage of the structure.
Turner said Hope Chapel, which also owns the parking lot and the Shorewood building at the lot’s eastern edge, plans to use the revenues from leasing to store to the grocer to fund renovations to the church facility.
A brochure available at the church’s lobby shows renderings of a redesigned Hope Chapel. But Turner cautioned that those designs do not necessarily reflect how the new house of worship will ultimately look.
“We have very preliminary designs,” he said. “We’re just starting the process of renovating.”
Hope Chapel arrived at the Hermosa Beach in 1975. Before being taken over by the church, the ocean-view location was home to a bowling alley.
In 2005, Lazy Acres was acquired by Bristol Farms. Bristol Farms, an upscale grocer with 15 stores in California, currently has locations in Manhattan Beach and Rolling Hills Estates, where the chain began.
Multiple calls for comment to Bristol Farms Carson headquarters went unreturned.
