Ralphs Saying June for Downtown Opening

"Upscale Fresh Fare concepts"

Does that mean they will charge us higher prices for basically the same products and service?

And what will they do about shopping carts?

Homeless people might stroll away with many unattended shopping carts.

They are having a "grand opening" with the mayor tomorrow morning in front of the Ralphs.

Sounds like a real step ahead. Downtown is finally getting noticed by the companies that people in the newer suburbs take for granted every day.

I'd pay higher prices for truly better goods - especially produce - but they need to have all the basics as well similarly priced as elsewhere in the chain. A 50,000 sq. ft. store is quite large, and should be fully modern and... CLEAN!

I understand there are devices now that are supposed to keep a shopping cart within a store's particular lot - they are front wheel clamping systems that lock a cart's wheels when the cart crosses an electronic wire or signal embedded in a paint strip at the perimeter of the lot. I heard something about it on KNX tonight... apparently the Councilman for the northern SF Valley has whipped up a $50,000.00 fund to retrieve or otherwise deal with errant shopping carts in his district, and he mentioned such a device. I'm sure the new Ralph's will have it. It is in use at several Safeway stores in San Jose, and apparently it works wonders.

I bet what they mean by "Fresh Fare concept" is, ironically, prepared food. It will be modeled after the Whole Foods approach of lots of expensive prepared food in steam tables for the busy urban executive they expect to fill the neighborhood. They are following the trend we have seen invading our food stores the last ten or so years.

I'm just guessing . . .

I can easily forsee this store becoming a real crossroads for the entire downtown community. Everyone needs groceries. The sheer convenience factor will be overwhelming.

Hopefully, their hours will be convenient. I'd also love it if there were a pharmacy on the premises, too.

Ralphs has "Fresh Fares" all over town. They carry all the same stuff as a regular Ralphs--at the same prices--but the decor is nicer, and they carry some more upscale items. They followed the Vons/Pavillions model and, over the past couple years, has aspired to compete with Whole Foods. But they fall far short.

And I wouldn't call it an invasion. Fresh Fare is hardly exclusive--they don't do racial profiling--and it'll be a nicer amenity than a regular Vons/Ralphs/Safeway.

(No, I don't work for Ralphs, nor am I rich. I just like supermarkets.)

"Homeless people might stroll away with many unattended shopping carts."

Most likely, shopping carts will be restricted to the supermarket and the parking structure. This is easy to do with barriers and a parking garage monitor.

If this is the case, then locals will probably do as they do in other urban areas: bring their own carts. Specifically, the fold-up carts that you pull. These little carts are able to hold a surprising amount of groceries.

Glendale passed an ordinance a few years back to deal with runaway carts, requiring all markets to find a way to keep carts in their lot, and guess what, it works. LA should do the same. The stores that dont comply, get fined.

The nearest supermarket to downtown, Food 4 Less in Pico Union has this parking lot barrier system. It works surprisingly well. You try to push that baby off the lot, it locks up and becomes as immobile as a large boulder. I wouldn't worry too much about Ralphs' problem with losing shopping carts.

I was out for a walk last night and checked out the construction site. One thing I wondered about was what will happen across the street from Ralph's on 9th. There's a stodgy condo project here dating to the 80s (Skyline?). At the street level, there was some effort to engage the street with retail and restaurants. Clearly, it wasn't very successful, as most of the spaces are abandoned and 'boarded up'. There are a couple of non-descript businesses, a travel agency and a printing service. But, nothing which entices the pedestrian. Hopefully, the property owner is looking to take advantage of the forthcoming change across the street and put these spaces to better use.

Yeah, David - I hope so too. That is a very good location as it is, being close to all the new lofts & condos in South Park... and street scene development, with outdoor dining extending into the sidewalk, is a very good use (and higher dollar retail lease rates) than the current street level storefronts. At the risk of sounding self-serving, I've had significant experience working with these types of things and I could come up with some great ideas for it... I hope the owner does take advantage of the opportunity of having what will be one of the highest traffic businesses Downtown right across the street.

For anyone curious about what the layout of the Ralph's will be like, here's a PDF-file diagram of it:

http://www.market-lofts.com/Ralphs_layout.pdf

It appears to be fairly typical of most supermarkets, which are common elsewhere, but still quite uncommon in central Los Angeles.

I have been to both the regular Ralph's and Fresh Fare - the FF ones seem to carry more organic products - yay!

I just hope it is a 24 hour store!

There's no mention of this in the mayor's schedule for Thursday or on City News Service.

The Ralph's Layout shows that the store will include both a Pharmacy and a Dry Cleaners, as well as many prepared food stations and even a dining area with tables & chairs. This will be one of Ralph's flagship stores, and a great boost to the area. It may resembly the store in the mixed-use condo+Ralph's in Marina Del Rey.

It's great that this development provides a supermarket and smaller retail to the neighborhood. Even more great is that the retail wraps all the way around the building, on three sides. IOW, no dead walls on this project. This will result in light and activity on three different streets (Flower, Hope and Ninth), adding a vitality to the neighborhood has been missing.

When Skyline opened in the '80's, it was great that they included so much retail space. Unfortunately, the lighting is bad and the retail units recede away from the sidewalk.

Now that the area is finally waking up, I also would like to see an effort by the Skyline condo association to improve those spaces and reposition them to take advantage of the quickly-changing neighborhood.

I wonder where the parking (if there will be any parking) will be? I don't live very far, but 8 blocks with groceries is a bit much.

Parking underneath the building (entrance on Hope). If I recall correctly, sign says 1 hr free (or maybe 90 mins, I can't remember) with validation, but after that it's $10 every 15 mins! That will make for some expensive groceries if you take too long.

But I suppose it's good to have that hefty penalty to discourage Market Lofts visitors from using the parking lot to visit friends and then buying a stick of gum.