Exploration morning of 7/21

Four corners this morning: Ashlan and Cedar, Cedar and Nees, and two corners at First and Nees.
I had hopes for Ashlan and Cedar, given the new 168 nearby. It’s an ugly mess of old and new– and the new is all full. Not worth it! There are a few interesting shops in there as a shopper (a used book store, etc.), but I wouldn’t want to open our store here. (There were other spaces, but they were both bigger and completely invisible from the parking lot.)

I drove up to the north end of town, following up on some leads by Mark and some research on cityfeet and showcase. The first stop was Cedar and Nees. It’s an interesting, long space that’s not too deep; a bit more than 70′ wide x 30′ deep. It’s a little hidden behind the corner gas station, but I think it’s a good space. [There is no major anchor this corner– it’s a corner strip around a gas station.]

The interior pictures are working left to right across the suites.

I like it. It’s a little quirky, but it looks like our store will complement the center well.

SEC First and Nees [Save Mart]: There’s one space buried in the back, hidden behind a McDonalds from the street, and as far from First as you can get.

The center seems to be thriving; the above store was the only vacancy on the corner. The neighbors aren’t perfect, but the big problem seems to be line of sight. From First, Save Mart “bumps out” to hide this wing of shops. From Nees, there’s a McDonalds in the way.

The opposite corner is the Vons shopping center. There are more openings in this center (5). The front pod is full, and the western leg of the L is pretty full despite 3 vacancies– there are a lot of little shops, including shoe repair, Dave’s Happy Dragon,and bigger stores like Round Table on the street end. The first pictured monument sign is for this leg.

The first space, 7763, probably won’t work– it’s only about 1200 SF.

The next two spaces are side by side, ripe for the combining. Together, they’d be 2400 SF.

On the First Street side of Vons, there’s a good sized former Gym (2,230 SF) next door to a good sized former Karate of 2,632 SF. Unfortunately, there’s no good space on the monument signage for those two spots. They are pretty convenient to the road however.

Now the gym:


Of these, I think the Gym could work best. It’s 2230 SF, which is pretty close to the size we want. It’s a busy, thriving corner and lots of people would drive past it to get to Vons and the shops along the other line. Unfortunately, we’d have to do a lot of talking to get these rates anywhere near what we want our total rent to come out to.