Alhambra : Sears Site May Be Market

The former Sears store site at Fremont and Commonwealth avenues could become home to a shopping center anchored by a Smith’s Food & Drug supermarket.

Council members have asked the city’s redevelopment agency to negotiate an agreement with Smith’s Food & Drug Centers Inc. and Haagen Alhambra Retail partnership, owners of the Sears store, to build a shopping center.

Julio J. Fuentes, city manager and executive director of the agency, said the center would include a Smith’s store of at least 70,000 square feet and two other stores of more than 30,000 square feet each.

Under a tentative plan, the Sears store would be demolished to make way for the new shopping center, Fuentes said. Sears closed April 3.

Smith’s Food & Drug, a Salt Lake City-based company with sales of $2.65 billion last year, owns more than 100 stores in eight states.

The supermarket chain controlled by the Smith family has opened 12 stores in the last year, including nine in Southern California.

Smith’s is building a 1-million-square-foot distribution center in Riverside.