Redondo Council OKs Shopping Center Project

The Redondo Beach City Council has approved a plan to build a 104,000-square-foot retail center on Inglewood Avenue just north of the San Diego Freeway. The center may open as soon as the spring of 1993, developers said.

A joint venture between Vestar Development Co. of Phoenix and VIO-SHAN, a Carson aerospace parts manufacturer, the retail project will be anchored by an 80,000-square-foot Smith’s Supermarket. A bank, a dry-cleaning store and restaurants are slated to fill the remaining space, according to Mike Hilton of Daum Commercial Real Estate.

Hilton described Smith’s as a “high-end” supermarket chain based in Salt Lake City. The chain is “aggressively expanding” in the South Bay with another store planned to open shortly in Torrance, Hilton said.

Two industrial buildings on the 8.25-acre parcel will be demolished. Rivets, nuts and bolts that hold together aircraft were formerly manufactured at the site, which has been vacant for about nine months.

At a time when Redondo Beach faces a severe budget crunch, the city will stand to gain $269,000 annually in sales tax revenues and $19,800 in annual property taxes when the project is completed. The retail center also is expected to generate 300 full- and part-time jobs, according to a city staff planning report.

The project will require adding traffic lanes and widening portions of Marine and Inglewood avenues at an estimated cost of $300,000, according to the report.