How the Vons on Figueroa is Set to Become a Neighborhood Shopping Center

The Vons on Figueroa Street has always had a reputation for being something of a neighborhood problem—an area where panhandlers are active, shoplifting is not unknown and people have been mugged.

All that is about to change as the grocery store prepares to become the center of a neighborhood shopping complex as early as this coming October.

At a well-attended community meeting on Tuesday evening at the , a representative of a property development subsidiary of Safeway, Vons’ parent company, gave a PowerPoint presentation about plans to add a variety of shops in parts of the area around Vons.

The speaker, David Zylstra, chief operating officer of Property Development Centers, began with a fascinating presentation of the grocery store’s history in the neighborhood.

Before there was a Vons on Figueroa, there was a Safeway, as far back as 1966, Zylstra said. The store became a Vons in 1988—and certain problems began to surface by the turn of the decade.

Boarded up between buildings and businesses, the grocery store and its surrounding area became “a neighborhood problem—for us as well,” Zylstra said.

“We had great problems keeping people out and it became dangerous,” he said. In 1999, Vons bought much of the property surrounding the grocery store. But it still wasn't easy doing business.

“I don't know how many of you know, but fuel is a big part of our business," Zylstra said. "We have fuel everywhere we can but we could never get fuel to work on this site. It was too complex to get the fueling stations in, so we gave up on that in 2004."

The first plans to transform Vons into a grocery store bordering a shopping center were formulated from 2000 to 2004, Zylstra said, apologizing for not having counducted community outreach about the plans until now.

Vons remodels its stores every seven to 10 years, and the Vons on Figueroa was made into one of the grocery chain’s “Lifestyle” format stores in 2007, Zylstra said. Vons is “open to remodeling the current store to a ‘premium’ store,” with an enhanced produce section as well as pharmacy on the lines of other Vons stores in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, he said, adding: “We only have around 10 of them.”

The shopping center plan is guided by three key components: Visibility, parking and access. “That’s what works best for retailers,” Zylstra said, adding that the plan has received “very warm attention from the retail community.”

Construction for the shopping center was scheduled to begin in 2011 but was put on hold, and groundwork finally began on Jan. 28.

“We really wanted to create a place where people could come and get their everyday needs,” Zylstra said, adding that Vons is considering leasing shops that will be fashioned into hair salons, restaurants, phone services stores, beauty care, banks and personal care.

Vons is working with Department of Transportation to improve traffic flow along Figueroa as well as La Loma Road, which has just one lane in each direction and where vehicles have to compete for space with parked cars and more than one public bus, Zylstra said.

One of the proposals for improving traffic on La Loma is to add a free right turn lane onto Figueroa, thereby relieving traffic backed up by vehicles turning left.

Other proposals include:

• Five-foot widening of Figueroa Street.
• Six-foot widening of La Loma Road.
• Making it easier to turn left from La Loma onto Figueroa.
• Adding a lane on La Loma to relieve congestion near a bus stop on the street.
• Repairs of neighboring sidewalks and gutters.

The Vons parking lot, which lies at an elevation six to seven feet below La Loma, will be ripped up and reconstructed in about three months and the shopping center complex could be finished by October, Zylstra said.

The community meeting was hosted by Property Development Centers; the office of Councilman José Huizar; Eagle Rock Chamber of Commerce; Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council; and TERA.