Fresh & Easy to Be Part of New Shopping Center

The Breakwater Project to develop an empty lot that used to be the Miracle Shopping Center will include a Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, according to documents recently presented to the city.

In a breakdown of shopping center costs delivered to the city Aug. 8, the parent company of Fresh & Easy in the United Kingdom, known as Tesco, is listed as the new shopping center’s marketplace.

According to the company's website, Fresh & Easy has 16 locations in San Diego County and more than 100 locations in California.

About one-third of the 46,000-square-foot shopping center will be a market or grocery store at a cost of $2.4 million, according to the report attached here in PDF form. 

Keyser Marston Associates, who advise the city and compiled the report, also indicate that Fresh & Easy as the likely tenant.

"Tesco is going to build their own store, and we've estimated the cost of that building at $125 per square foot," said Paul Marra of Keyser Marston Associates. "So that's our estimate of what they're going to have to spend."

The Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA) between the city and Sudberry Development that appears on the agenda of a city council meeting Wednesday specifices that the market be constructed to Fresh & Easy specs.

"The only use specifically identified in the DDA is Fresh & Easy (or comparable grocer) so the estimate to construct that building (as provided by Fresh & Easy/Tesco) was included as that will generate construction jobs," said Assistant City Manager Greg Wade. 

Fresh & Easy did not respond to repeated requests for comment earlier this year and have not returned recent calls for comment.

Questions of whether Fresh & Easy would be a part of the shopping center have gone back and forth.

In spring 2011 Estean Lenyoun, who oversees urban development for project developer Sudberry, told city council that Panda Express, Starbucks and Fresh & Easy have expressed an interest in being tenants in the new shopping center.

On Tuesday, Lenyoun declined to comment on Tesco's mention in the document or possible role in the project. Like earlier this year, he said no commitments have been made.

, Lenyoun and former Imperial Beach Redevelopment Agency coordinator Jerry Selby told IB Patch that tenants would not be revealed until deals are final.

"Until we have leases signed, we're not going to reveal what's there," Selby said. Without confidentiality agreements for negotiations, "things can fall apart. I realize there's a lot of rumors out there and everything else, but nothing has been signed."

The Imperial Beach Redevelopment Agency Successor Agency will move to approve an agreement between Sudberry and the city at its meeting Wednesday evening. The Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA) was first signed in December 2011 by the now dissolved Imperial Beach Redevelopment Agency.

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Tell us in comments.

Excited about Fresh & Easy or would you want to see a different market at the new shopping center?