Chesterfield Square Area Glad to Add a Starbucks

Gertrude Dillard is not much of a coffee drinker. But Tuesday morning, Dillard, along with hundreds of others, lingered for hours at her neighborhood Starbucks.

The cafe’s grand opening in Chesterfield Square, a shopping center in South-Central Los Angeles, was about more than just coffee. For many, it symbolized investment in a community long overlooked by name-brand retailers.

“Typically, places like Starbucks forget about our community,” said Mckina Brannon, who spent the morning at the coffee shop with her 10-year-old son. “But we do enjoy coffee too.”

In the movie “Training Day,” Sgt. Alonzo Harris, an LAPD narcotics detective played by Denzel Washington, tells his trainee that he won’t find a Starbucks in South-Central.

That neglect became opportunity to basketball star-turned-entrepreneur Earvin “Magic” Johnson. His company, Johnson Development Corp., and Starbucks formed a 50/50 partnership in 1998, called Urban Coffee Opportunities, to bring Starbucks into urban neighborhoods. The Chesterfield Square cafe, at Slauson Avenue and Western Boulevard, is the 10th Los Angeles location and the 33rd across the nation.

“You deserve to have the best of the best, and we brought you that,” Johnson told the crowd at Tuesday’s ceremony.

Those there to meet the former Laker were grateful.

“It’s nice to have a place to go to get major-league coffee,” said 56-year-old Dillard, a hospital worker.

The Starbucks, like other tenants in Chesterfield Square, employs neighborhood residents. The first day the store accepted applications, managers received more than 200.

Johnson is hopeful that the venture will not only bring jobs, but also attract other name-brand stores, in turn increasing property values in the area.

At 250,000 square feet, Chesterfield Square is the largest commercial development in South Los Angeles in more than a decade. A Home Depot, Food4Less, Subway and McDonald’s also share the shopping center.

Attracting brands such as Starbucks is critical to the development, said Gerald Katell, president of Katell Properties.

“All of these entities are national brands,” Katell said. “The community wanted a shopping center like one that would be in West L.A. or like anywhere else.”

The center, painted in Mediterranean hues, is a stark contrast to surrounding businesses, some of which are in dilapidated buildings or have bars on their windows.

The celebration of the grand opening drew several hundred residents and schoolchildren, two radio stations and local officials such as Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and Police Chief Bernard C. Parks.

Tampa Bay Buccaneer and L.A. native Keyshawn Johnson, an investor in the Chesterfield Square development, was also on hand. He is also investing in the Santa Barbara Plaza in Crenshaw.

Parks congratulated both for their efforts. “The best crime deterrent is employment,” he said.

Lim Horn, owner of a nearby doughnut shop, said he doesn’t fear the competition from the new Starbucks. “There is already a lot of coffee around here,” Horn said.

“But the people around here need cheap coffee. Starbucks is expensive. I can sell coffee for 75 cents.”