A Broader Hope in Market Plan

Certainly it’s good news that after 26 years UCLA students and Westwood residents will once again have a grocery market close by. Developers of the now-unused Bullock’s-Macy’s department store adjacent to the UCLA campus announced Thursday that a Ralphs supermarket will be established inside the building. The move should enliven the forlorn northern end of Westwood and may well spark a villagewide commercial renaissance.

But Westwood isn’t the only part of Los Angeles with boarded-up department stores and substandard grocery stores or none at all. The Westwood deal should spur developers and city officials to continue working hard in the older neighborhoods to deliver needed retail services.

The 225,000-square-foot Westwood store has been shuttered for two years, litter and security fencing marring its 1950s facade. Earlier plans for the site, including a big-box electronics store and a small merchant bazaar, failed to gain either neighborhood support or financing. Meanwhile, neighborhood opposition stalled a more ambitious redevelopment scheme planned for a large parcel east of the department store that would have included movie theaters, housing and a library.

The Ralphs deal has drawn wide community support. The market, set to open in a year, will occupy the building’s second floor, opening onto Le Conte Avenue. Ralphs will operate one of its high-end “Fresh Fare” markets on the site, offering gourmet items along with regular groceries. An interior furnishings store, EXPO Design Center, will fill the ground floor.

The same day that Macy’s closed in Westwood, the chain also abruptly locked the doors at its Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza store, later describing both stores as underperforming. A Wal-Mart discount store is scheduled to open in that space by mid-2001.

Since the 1992 riots, new supermarkets have also opened in South Los Angeles, thanks to determined efforts by several political representatives and community groups. But much of the city remains underserved. Creative uses of existing buildings, of the sort developing in Westwood, are sorely needed.