Smart & Final to anchor shopping center in South San Jose

Grocer Smart & Final has leased a store once occupied by another supermarket in South San Jose.

The supermarket chain, based in Commerce, has leased a 39,000-square-foot space at the Downer Square shopping center at 430 Blossom Hill Road, the San Jose Mercury News reported. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Smart & Final will occupy a space that once hosted Lucky, a subsidiary of Modesto-based Save Mart Supermarkets.

The new Smart & Final Extra! will anchor the nearly 7-acre shopping center now anchored on the other side by a Walgreens pharmacy.

The 73,500-square-foot Downer Square includes such tenants as Fresh & Clean cleaners, Nail Art salon, Pearl River Chinese Restaurant, Downer Square Shoe & Luggage, Downer Square Bottle Shop and Yum Yum Donuts.

The Smart & Final lease marks the first big deal in decades at the 56-year-old shopping center.

“It is rare to have a vacancy in this center,” according to a space-availability notice by Coates & Sowards, a Campbell-based property management firm that handles Downer Square. “Almost all of the tenants have been there for 20 years or more, some over 40 years and a few over 50 years.”

Smart & Final, founded 151 years ago in Los Angeles, is among the nation’s oldest retailers.

In May 2021, it was acquired for $620 million by Bodega Latina Corporation (later renamed Chedraui USA), a subsidiary of Grupo Comercial Chedraui, a chain of grocery and department stores based in Xalapa, Mexico. The seller was Apollo Global Management.

Smart & Final operates 254 Smart & Final and Smart & Final Extra! stores in California, Nevada and Arizona, according to its website.

— Dana Bartholomew

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