Temescal Plaza in Oakland to Get Grocery Outlet Store

A vacant retail location in Oakland’s Temescal Plaza shopping center is poised to be filled by a discount grocery store.

Temescal Property Management, the owner of Temescal Plaza, filed an application with the City of Oakland for closeout supermarket chain Grocery Outlet to move into the storefront once occupied by Walgreens, the San Francisco Business Times reported. The site, at 5055 Telegraph Avenue, spans 14,370 square feet and is located across the street from a Whole Foods Market at 5110 Telegraph Avenue.

It would be the second Oakland location for Emeryville-based Grocery Outlet. The discount grocery store’s first Oakland outpost at 2900 Broadway is about a mile and a half south of the forthcoming location at Temescal Plaza. Another Grocery Outlet location in San Francisco at 350 Bay Street is slated to open by the end of next month.

Walgreens closed its doors at Temescal Plaza last February as part of the drug store chain’s wider Bay Area store shutdown. Temescal Property Management is negotiating with the city to designate 15 of the 150 parking spaces at the shopping center for Grocery Outlet customers, which would require an amendment to a three-decade-old agreement that requires all parking spots there to be available to all customers.

Grocery Outlet’s tenancy is seemingly relying on that parking modification. “Finding tenants for medium- and large-scale retail spaces like the former Walgreens space is increasingly difficult,” Temescal Property Management’s application said. “Simply, without relief from the 1995 [Planned Unit Development] condition, Grocery Outlet will not move into the space, which would be a significant lost opportunity for the surrounding community.”

Grocery Outlet announced last February that it planned to terminate leases for some unopened stores in “suboptimal locations” as part of a restructuring plan. Looking ahead, the company vowed to be more selective with store openings by focusing on cities in its existing markets and some adjacent new markets. — Chris Malone Méndez