More on El Super Land Use
Ξ March 4th, 2009 | → | ∇ Highland Park |
Here is a recap of the land use meeting, thanks to our friend Milla at The Milla Times:
Big Lots soon to be an El Super.
There was a great deal of protestation from the developer that they are community oriented. It was pointed out to them they made no effort to contact anyone in Highland Park, or either Council District until they were forced by the stop work order from the City Cultural Heritage Commission.
They claimed they would be bringing 130 locally hired jobs to Highland Park, and that their wages were better than the Union wages they pay to their recently acquired El Gigante chain. Until it was pointed out that the Union wage at El Gigante is one dollar above minimum wage, and no, they admitted, they would not be paying wages comparable to Vons and Albertsons.
They claim other mom and pop grocery stores in their other locations have not been driven out of business, when it was pointed out that the opposite was true at several specific locations.
They said they would be putting in trees and landscaping until it was pointed out that trees are not on their plans. When asked about trucks, they said they would accommodate the neighborhood and change delivery times to suit traffic concerns. However they estimated 4 to 5 large trucks per day not counting smaller trucks. They have made no investigations about traffic patterns, and not addressed damage the heavy trucks will do to York Blvd.
They expressed explicit willingness to work with Land Use on the design and scale of the building whether or not the building was designated historical, and yes they are willing to replace the facade they destroyed. They are returning to a special Land Use meeting Tues. March 17 to begin this process.
It made a big difference to have a large crowd there, as they now clearly understand their mistake, and actually apologized for not coming to us before. They actually said they were not used to having such a strong community response. This is code. They means they usually market to poor neighborhoods who express no community concern, and are used to coming in and doing whatever they
please.I was surprised to hear they are not planning a gigantic store, but rather 36,000 sq ft. Super A is 30,000. And they sell only groceries, not clothes or other items. However, scouts to other stores have found their produce and other products to be poor quality.
3 Responses to ' More on El Super Land Use '
on March 24th, 2009 at 11:05 am
woww
on June 23rd, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Wow, their actions do not make them look good at all!
I will say I’ve been to the El Super on Sherman Way and had fun shopping there - they had interesting items I don’t normally see in a grocery - like pre-made pupusa’s.
But now they do seem to be pretty thoughtless about neighborhoods!
on August 25th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
it is really sad that el super will opening soon of this month or next month. and to see alot of emplyees get laid off from super a foods. all this eople that they are going to get laid off fromm super a foods wont have jobs and you gooing to see el super not giving them any benefits. also, so sad that the community did not do any thing to stop them from ths store entering in highlandpark. see all little business mamma and papa store go out of business. reall sad to see this happening all the fault is the commmunity did not do anything