Rio Ranch Market will add another grocery store to cater to the growing residential population in Downtown LA
It was almost a year ago when the Downtown News reported that the Riverside-based grocery chain, Rio Ranch Market, would be coming to Downtown LA’s Chinatown district at the prominent intersection of Grand and Cesar Chavez (a stone’s throw from the Music Center). After a long pause with no activity, many within the downtown community wondered if the deal had just fallen through. Luckily, that’s not the case.
According to the listing agent for the commercial space, Armando Aguirre, who I spoke to earlier this week, Rio Ranch Market is “getting close to submitting for their building permits.” The grocery store will be about 30,000 square feet and have a 3,000 square foot pharmacy.
As to why it’s taken this long? Aguirre responds, “We’ve had a couple of contingencies that we’re working through while they developed their site plans. So it is still moving forward just taking a long time like everything these days.”
And some more good tidbits. According to the Downtown News, the 302-unit senior housing building Rio Ranch Market will be going into is getting a facade improvement upgrade courtesy of the CRA as part of the Chinatown redevelopment area.
This is great! a grocery store will nicely activate the bottom of this building and will be a great addition to the neighborhood for residents in the area. Next up -- get rid of the Burger King across the street!
Im more excited about the facade improvements. That building was just horrible. i hope the improvements include better street/sidewalk interaction and removal of all that blue metal railing.
Yes, the facade improvements are welcome news! The building looks straight out of the 80s…I was surprised to find that it was built relatively recently.