A Good Idea for Southeast

There was a time in the late 1960s when Southeast San Diego was home to a half-dozen supermarkets. Then, one by one, they began to close, victims of the area’s rising unemployment and crime rates. Since then, residents of the largely minority community have had to travel to other parts of town to buy groceries or settle for mom-and-pop stores or non-chain markets with higher prices. The supermarket chains were not interested in coming back.

Now Sol Price, founder of the highly successful Price Co., may have found an answer to the inner-city neighborhood’s problem: He has agreed to help establish a nonprofit retail complex in the city’s Gateway Center redevelopment area. The proposal was announced last week by City Councilman William Jones and approved by the board of the Southeast Development Corp., the city’s redevelopment arm for that area. Now it moves to the City Council for approval.

The 50,000-square-foot retail facility on Martin Luther King Way just east of Interstate 15 would open in conjunction with a retail training school. Known as Gateway Marketplace, it would offer automotive supplies, appliances and a pharmacy as well as groceries. The financial underpining would come from a $2-million charitable trust controlled by Price.

With the land supplied by the city and the merchandising ability supplied by Price, this is an enterprise that begins with great promise. We have no doubt that residents of the area, long frustrated by the lack of good retail outlets, will welcome it with pride and relief. As for Price, he’s using his acknowledged skills as a retailer to make a significant contribution to a community of 100,000 people. Nice work, Mr. Price.