‘Under-retailed’ Elk Grove greets new stores; shopping centers reshuffle retail deck
Elk Grove’s retail landscape is reshuffling with several shopping centers welcoming new stores and one popular location getting a makeover.
The retail activity in Sacramento County’s second largest city amid an economy derailed by the effects of the ongoing pandemic has encouraged Elk Grove’s economic development office.
“Retail has always been strong in Elk Grove,” city Economic Development Director Darrell Doan said Tuesday.
“For a city of our size, we’re still under retailed. I’m happy to see quite a bit of new retail development,” he said, pointing to recently opened projects such as The Ridge. The shopping center on the southeast corner of Elk Grove Boulevard and Bruceville Road next to Costco continues to build out despite the pandemic.
New entries in Elk Grove include specialty discounter Five Below which recently marked its grand opening at Laguna Marketplace, the busy shopping center anchored by Target and Total Wine and More at Laguna Boulevard and Bruceville Road.
The Philadelphia-based tween-and-teen retailer will soon be joined on the same stretch by a Ross Stores location and Ulta Beauty, all of which fill the vacancy left by departed California hardware mainstay Orchard Supply Hardware.
“OSH was a good sales tax generator — it was a great old California brand,” Doan said.
The old OSH site at the marketplace’s Bruceville Road entrance was razed to make way for the new storefronts — 45,000 square feet in all. Signage and a new color scheme are coming together at the new Ross and Ulta locations, the second Elk Grove sites for both.
Marketplace anchor Target will also get a facelift with an upcoming store remodel, Doan said.
“It’s a good store — an older store — and an important piece,” Doan said. “It’s great to see some of these projects happening.”
Just south of Laguna Marketplace, a new Ace Hardware will soon move into the Elk Grove Commons shopping center on Elk Grove Boulevard and Bruceville anchored by Kohl’s and Trader Joe’s, Doan confirmed.
Ace will occupy the space vacated by the shuttered Cost Plus World Market, which closed in January, filling the hardware gap left by OSH and providing a smaller counterpart to the city’s large home improvement stores.
The new 18,000-square-foot store will also likely be a welcome sight to west Elk Grove Ace customers who now travel across town to Sheldon Ace Hardware on Grant Line Road.
“Ace is a great brand and it’s a very accessible space,” Doan said.
Doan also said the city has lined up a yet-unnamed sporting goods tenant for the vacant Dick’s Sporting Goods site at Laguna Gateway shopping center at Laguna and Big Horn boulevards. The sporting goods outlet decamped for Sacramento’s Delta Shores shopping mall in December 2019.
Elk Grove has been no stranger to empty storefronts during the pandemic. Businesses along the city’s main east-west retail corridors that closed their doors included Cost Plus, OSH, Pier One Imports, Stein Mart, Toys “R” Us and Tuesday Morning, as the companies shed stores or called it quits. But Doan said Elk Grove residents’ spending power and retail demand remained high.
“We saw a lot of national retail restructuring even before the pandemic — Toys “R” Us, Dick’s, Cost Plus …. I wasn’t concerned. We refilled quickly,” he said. “We have 175,000 residents, we’re well-employed. I’m bullish. I’m optimistic about retail.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 9:49 AM.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story contained incorrect information about a former Ace Hardware location on Elk Grove Florin Road. The store is closed.
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