Kmart Plans to Open Three Super Stores in O.C. : Retail: The sites, each featuring a pharmacy, grocery and cappuccino cafe, will be in Anaheim Hills, Aliso Viejo and La Habra, sources say.
The Super Boxes are coming.
That’s what retail specialists have dubbed a concept that Kmart Corp. is set to bring to Orange County: A combination discount department store, 24-hour pharmacy, grocery and cappuccino cafe.
At least three sites are being readied, according to local real estate sources. The stores will be in Anaheim Hills at the Riverside Freeway and Weir Canyon Road; in Aliso Viejo on Aliso Creek Road in the planned Pacific Park Town Center; and in La Habra at Imperial Highway and Idaho Street, on the site of the former La Habra Drive-In. A possible fourth store is being considered for Brea.
The Troy, Mich.-based Kmart, which now operates 14 stores in Orange County, declined official comment Thursday on future Orange County locations. One store manager, who asked not to be identified, said the first Super Kmart is scheduled to open in October in Anaheim Hills.
The timing coincides with three Wal-Marts that are said to be opening in Orange County. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is based in Bentonville, Ark., has so far declined to confirm its expansion plans.
One site said to be a future Wal-Mart location in Laguna Hills would be less than two miles from the planned Aliso Viejo Kmart.
“Part of the new Kmart will compete head-on with Wal-Mart and Target,” said Greg Mickelson, a retail broker in the Newport Beach office of Grubb & Ellis Commercial Real Estate. “And part of it will compete with all of the grocery chains.”
Retail consultant Linda Crowley, president of Irvine-based Linda Crowley & Associates, said the influx of such super stores is going to be too much for Orange County to digest. Across the freeway in Anaheim Hills, the Festival Marketplace is already struggling, she said. The center contains a Target and a 3-D Bed and Bath.
“They’re going to get hit” by the new arrival, Crowley said. “The super boxes are getting real aggressive.”
Price Club, Costco and Sam’s Club also compete in this category of large, low-price destination retailers, she said. Sam’s, a division of Wal-Mart, purchased 91 Pace Membership Warehouse locations in November from Kmart. Half a dozen are in Orange County.
“It remains to be seen whether the retailers can make any money competing that aggressively,” Mickelson said.
Kmart operates 19 Super Kmarts across the nation. The first opened in Medina, Ohio, in July, 1991. The retailer has announced plans for 50 more during 1994.
