Supermarket may be closer to fruition Supermarket may be closer to fruition (January 24, 2003)

City has two bidders to build a large grocery store

by Don Kazak

East Palo Alto's long quest to bring a supermarket to town may be getting closer to fruition. A city-appointed task force seeking out grocers has two companies responding to requests for proposals.

More companies will be contacted and city staff should have a recommendation for the City Council by mid-February, Russell Averhart, the city's administrative services director, told the council Tuesday night.

The city established the task force last year to fulfill the city's long need of getting a grocery store. Current redevelopment plans for the Bay Road area -- the last of the city's three redevelopment areas -- do not include plans for such a store, so land will likely have to be found elsewhere.

The city had a grocery store 30 years ago, a Palo Alto Co-op Market, which is long gone. Its site is the large vacant parcel at University Avenue and Bay Road, now targeted as a "town square" as a home for nonprofits and other community-serving agencies.

Mayor Pat Foster was pleased that two possible developers have expressed an interest in building a grocery store. "But I would have liked to see more companies respond," she said.

"I would love to have the Drew site have a grocery store on the ground floor," Foster added.

Foster was referring to the site of the former Drew Health Foundation, located on University Avenue close to Donohoe Street. Developers Owen Byrd and Tony Carrasco obtained an option to purchase the 3-acre property in November, 2001. It is across the street from the proposed University Palms office and retail project that Byrd and Carrasco have pending before the council.

University Palms was defeated by the council on a 2-2 deadlock Oct. 2, but the current council -- there are two new members since the November election -- has voted to reconsider University Palms at its Feb. 3 meeting.

"When Tony and I obtained site control (over Drew), we believed there was a way to make the economic formula we applied to the Palms site apply to the Drew site," Byrd said. The University Palms offices will economically subsidize the ground-floor retail stores in that project.

"We are interested in seeing if we can make it work for a supermarket, but the University Palms discussion has to be completed first," Byrd added. "A supermarket is certainly one of the uses that could be accommodated on that site, if it was subsidized by other uses."

The city's frustration in trying to woo a supermarket goes back years. Both Safeway and then-Lucky (now Albertsons) took a look at the University Avenue and Bay Road site years ago and decided it wasn't economically feasible to build a 50,000 to 60,000-square foot store -- the minimum size both chains said they would currently build.

However, Albertsons has since agreed to rebuild its south Palo Alto store at just under 30,000 square feet.

Staff recommendations on grocery store proposals are expected to come before the council on Feb. 18.

Don Kazak can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com