The Rinconada neighbors now welcome Longs to local center
Planning commission turned the chain down last year
Center upgrade offered
By Nathan R. Huff
They may have left town licking their wounds last year, but Longs Pharmacy is back again, asking for the town's permission to open a small drugstore in the same Pollard Road shopping center.
This time, however, the same neighborhood that overwhelmingly rejected the idea of Longs taking over the locally owned Rinconada Pharmacy has submitted more than 150 signatures in support of a "small" Longs drugstore in the center.
Los Angeles-based Duckett Wilson Management Company, which built and owns half the Rinconada Hills Shopping Center, has presented a plan for a 7,000-square-foot drugstore adjoining Safeway's 26,000-square-foot supermarket.
A key element to the plan--and something planning commissioners have been concerned about with other Rinconada Center applications--is the makeover of the center's exterior appearance. According to the plans filed on June 27, Duckett Wilson will submit new storefront elevations, and an "overall upgrade of the shop buildings and common areas."
The end result will be a center that matches the recently approved plans to remodel Safeway, the center's anchor store. The Safeway remodel was approved several months ago with wide neighborhood support. Speaking in favor of the expansion and remodel at planning commission hearings, a number of neighborhood residents also questioned why Longs' application was rejected. Commissioners suggested residents voice their opinions to Duckett Wilson, which then decided on a second try at getting the drugstore into the center.
"People don't realize what they have until it's gone," said Patrick Conway, Duckett Wilson's leasing manager for the site. "It's really convenient to have a drugstore you can walk to."
Longs' first foray to move into the center ended in disaster, mainly due to neighborhood opposition after the eviction of neighborhood drugstore Rinconada Pharmacy.
The pharmacy had been engaged in a long and ugly legal battle with its Los Angeles landlord trying to get its lease reinstated. The pharmacy lost its challenge, eventually moving to a smaller space at nearby Vasona Station. Neighbors, many of them longtime customers of the local pharmacy, vowed to sink Longs Drugs' attempts to takeover the old space.
And sink it they did. Showing up en masse, with a petition of more than 1,000 neighbors and business owners in opposition, neighbors blasted Duckett Wilson for what they viewed as the unlawful eviction of a local store and the introduction of a major chain.
The planning commission responded by voting 5-1 to deny the application on the grounds it presented no real community benefit, failed to enhance the center as a whole and lacked neighborhood support. Commissioners also said they had reservations about approving the application when Safeway, which owns its part of the center, had plans to do a remodel.
Longs never appealed the denial to the council. Conway said that decision was made to lessen the controversy surrounding the company, which already has two stores in the area. "They feel they have a very good reputation in town and a good client base," Conway said. "They didn't want to create bad blood with the town's residents."
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