El Monte : Food Superstore OKd

The city has approved the second phase of the El Monte Town Center redevelopment project, calling for the creation of 100,000-square-foot food retail “superstore.” The store will be built in what used to be the subterranean level of the old Sears store. The first level was converted to a Home Club store last summer by the Alexander Haagen Development Co.

Haagen, which holds the overall redevelopment agreement for the center at Peck Road near the San Bernardino Freeway, will spend $6 million to renovate the lower level of the old Sears store, City Administrator Greg Korduner said. The Community Redevelopment Agency will spend another $650,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant funds to construct a new parking lot for the superstore, he said. Korduner said that because negotiations are under way with the superstore tenant, the firm’s identity has not been made public.

Manhattan Beach-based Haagen also intends to build a free-standing restaurant on the site of the old Sears Center and to buy adjacent property, including a closed grocery store, for $2.75 million for later development, Korduner said.