Crenshaw Area Wary of Boys’ Bid for Mall Market

Peter J. Sodini, president of The Boys Markets, whose supermarkets have staked out a profitable niche in urban areas abandoned by other chains, wants to put an upscale supermarket in the $120-million Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.

However, The Boys may be its own biggest obstacle to establishing the store. Residents of the middle- and upper-class area have criticized the 68-year-old Highland Park chain for its high prices and near-monopoly status.

The Boys operates the only four supermarkets within 2 square miles of the developing mall, in the neighborhoods of Crenshaw, Baldwin Hills, View Park and Leimert Park. And the idea of The Boys having the fifth market as well does not please many residents.

Still, Sodini proposed the plan to about 150 residents last week at a meeting sponsored by the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Network. The group meets monthly to discuss the future of the Crenshaw community.

The new store, Sodini said, would be a specialty supermarket along the lines of the Boys markets in Marina del Rey.

“It will be a full-scale, upscale market that would rival anything in Los Angeles,” he said. “We think it will work very well in this neighborhood.”

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The market, Sodini added, would complement the design of the 800,000-square-foot mall, which includes Sears, Broadway and May Co. stores and space for 100 smaller shops.

Sodini said the new store would offer services not available at existing Boys stores in the Crenshaw neighborhood, such as separate delicatessen and bakery departments. He showed slides of possible store designs, food displays with lush produce and lean meats and shelves stocked with other products. He said the market would not carry the Boys name but would be called “The Food Emporium, a contemporary store with a traditional past.”

All this, however, was not enough to satisfy many in the audience.

“We want variety. Another Boys does not give us a choice, whether you call it Boys or not, and we want a choice,” said Russell Moore, one of several residents who accused the chain of “price gouging” and cited its near-monopoly status in parts of the inner city.

Mary Moore, another resident, complained: “We spend big money in the community, and we deserve the best and not mediocre. We have nothing at the Boys market. The Boys market is a rip-off.”

The residents’ complaints about Boys were highlighted last week when the California Public Interest Research Group released a supermarket price survey showing that for the second year in a row, Boys had the highest prices in the area.

The Oct. 15 survey of seven major Southern California chains found that Boys’ prices were 9.4% higher overall than those at Lucky, which had the lowest. That means that someone paying $100 for groceries at Lucky would have paid $109.40 for the same groceries at Boys.

Sodini said the high prices are needed to cover the higher cost of security in Boys’ urban locations and to make up for thefts and other operating expenses.

A spokesman for the Alexander Haagen Co., which is developing the mall, said a couple of supermarket chains have expressed interest in moving there, but only Boys has been willing to make its proposal public.

Before the developer can sign a lease with a supermarket chain, it must resolve a dispute with Bank of America, which refuses to vacate a branch on the mall site that is slated for the supermarket.

The Los Angeles Redevelopment Agency, a co-developer of the mall, has asked a Superior Court judge to resolve the dispute, which is expected to go to trial next year.

Headed for Trial

Some residents said Boys has earned the right to the new location because it has remained in the community while other supermarkets have fled.

“It is a difficult situation. In a strange way, The Boys is being penalized for being good,” said Eudora Russell. “I feel that The Boys has been respectful of this community, and in that sense I feel they deserve an opportunity to be there. I would rather have another Boys in the mall and go outside if I need a choice than to have a substandard supermarket in there.”

Should The Boys sign a lease for the mall, Sodini said his company would remain in the other four area locations. “There are 150,000 to 175,000 people living within a 3- to 5-mile radius, and we think that a lot of them have been leaving the area to shop elsewhere,” he said. “This new store will bring them back.”

The mall is at Crenshaw and Martin Luther King boulevards. The Boys has two other markets on Crenshaw, at Slauson Avenue and Rodeo Road, and two on La Brea Avenue, at Rodeo and Centinela Avenue.

Members of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Network have asked the Haagen Co. to meet with representatives of other markets interested in moving into the mall. The group also has written letters to major supermarket chains inviting them to put a store in their community, said Adrienne Mayberry, a member of the network.

“The Boys has really earned the right to be in that spot, but if they do, they will be the only market around,” Mayberry said. “We cannot get around the fact that there is no competition here.”