The Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market chain has taken a big step toward moving into Oak Park, closing escrow last week on a vacant parcel at Broadway and 34th Street.
But it's not at all clear how quickly the British-owned firm will build and open that store, along with 18 additional outlets planned for the Sacramento area and dozens more throughout Northern California.
The company's push into NorCal - originally planned for next year - could go on hold because of the U.S. economic downturn, according to a story last week in the Times of London.
Fresh & Easy CEO Tim Mason was quoted as saying stores will continue to open - but at a slower pace - in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, where 100 of the compact, no-frills markets are up and running.
But "there's a big cost step" expanding into Northern California, Mason says, and the company will be "quite flexible" about when it launches that expansion.
A Fresh & Easy spokesman in Los Angeles declined comment on the company's local plans.
Despite the possible slowdown, local officials welcomed the news that Fresh & Easy had finally purchased the 1.6-acre Oak Park site, which it bought for about $1.1 million from Mayor-elect Kevin Johnson's Kynship Development.
The 15,000-square-foot store would be the second full-service grocery in Oak Park, joining a Food Source market that opened at Broadway and Stockton Boulevard in 1999.
Design issues that delayed escrow were recently resolved, reports broker Fritz Brown of Brown, Stevens, Elmore & Sparre, who represented Kynship in the deal.
Ron Vrilakas, an architect/developer who is working on a nearby mixed-used project, says Fresh & Easy's purchase is "a strong vote of confidence in the future of the neighborhood."
But until the economy perks up, Fresh & Easy apparently isn't quite as confident as it once was about the immediate future of the U.S. grocery business.
For the rest of Bob Shallit's column, see Tuesday's "Our Region" section. Reach Shallit at (916) 321-1049.
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