Plans Proceeding, Alpha Beta Says

Plans to build an Alpha Beta supermarket on a vacant lot at Adams Boulevard and Vermont Avenue are moving ahead, a supermarket official assured a crowd of more than 100 last week at a rally across from the site.

“We want it to happen as fast as it can happen,” said Pat Barber, vice president of real estate for Food 4 Less, which owns the Alpha Beta chain. “I believe all the major obstacles have been removed.”

Members of the Southern California Organizing Committee, which draws from churches, block clubs and community organizations in South and South-Central Los Angeles, Compton, Wilmington and Inglewood, have been demanding construction of a supermarket at the site, which has been vacant for more than eight years.

The committee organized Wednesday’s rally to get an account of the status of the project from Food 4 Less officials.

Many residents of the densely populated area do not drive and only have access to a single crowded supermarket a mile away, said Father William Delaney of St. Agnes Church.

Since taking office in 1991, City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas has been working with Food 4 Less to find a minority business partner for the project. Barber and Roy Willis, director of operations for the city Community Redevelopment Agency, which owns the land and must approve the project, said an agreement with a prospective minority partner is nearly completed.

Willis said satisfying all the community’s requirements for the project has been time-consuming but necessary for the construction of “a showcase project that will set standards for others to follow so that when South-Central is rebuilt, it won’t be just the same old South-Central.”

Despite the slow progress of the project, Willis said the community will be getting “everything it wants,” including a high-quality supermarket with architecture that matches the character of the neighborhood, minority participation in the project and promises to relocate historical houses near the lot.

But committee members pledged to keep the pressure on until ground is broken. “We demand some action, not in the distant future, but immediately,” Delaney said.