The former Vons grocery store in West Las Vegas—for 10 years the only major supermarket in this lower-income neighborhood—is now guarded in the mornings by Al Staats, a roly-poly guard with a face like Harry Caray. He wears a green T-shirt with the word "Security" emblazoned in white, a green hat with the word "Security" emblazoned in white, shorts, tall white socks—and a gun. He's been on the beat four years. "This area needs a grocery store real bad," he says.
Since Vons closed last summer, citing poor performance, residents have had to trek miles and miles to find a major shopping center. A new tenant has yet to be found. "It should have happened by now," says John Edmond, who owns the shopping center the Vons site is in, and is building a large expansion next door.
Vons closed two other stores in Las Vegas last year, but neither was in an area as depressed as West Las Vegas, or in an area with so few other shopping options. One of these stores, at Desert Inn and Eastern, remains closed, but a Sunflower Market grocery store will open at the other site, at Rainbow and Flamingo, this fall.
No doubt about it: Grocery stores are hard to find in West Las Vegas. There's a Food 4 Less at Carey and Las Vegas Boulevard, and a Spanish market at Rancho and Washington. And that's about it. It's possible to drive around the major thoroughfares of the area —Lake Mead Boulevard, Martin Luther King Drive, Washington Avenue—for half an hour and not see one. Staats knew a woman who took the bus to a Vons at Craig Road and MLK, a distance of several miles. The trip took her four hours, round-trip. "This building here is just going to waste."
Vons opened at the corner of J and Owens in 1993 and had a tough time from the start. The store was a higher-end supermarket serving a middle- to lower-income neighborhood. "It should have been a store that catered more to the residents of this area," Edmond says.
"Vons was a mismatch in the neighborhood," says Scott Adams, head of the city's Office of Business Development.
Further, the original shopping center was small. The only other stores were an Auto Zone, a State Farm insurance office, and a mail store. Of these, only Auto Zone is still open for business. There is also a branch of Wells Fargo bank.
When Edmond bought the Vons shopping center in September 2002, he tried to persuade the grocer to stay, because he was planning an expansion of the original shopping plaza. The new 85,000-square-foot addition will include an apparel store, a Foot Locker, a 99 Cent Discount store, a fish restaurant, a barbershop and beauty shop, a laundromat, and an auto accessory store. Stores should being opening by October or November. "Since you took the worst end," Edmond says he explained to Vons officials, "you might as well stick around to get some of the gravy."
But Vons didn't bite and closed its West Las Vegas store, along with several others, last summer. Now, Edmond and officials at the city are trying to fill the space. The city has put together a package of tax rebates worth up to $500,000 to lure a new grocer. It is possible, says the city's Adams, that two tenants could jointly take over the Vons site. "Our collective feeling is there's probably a pretty good market there," he says.
Vons still has a lease on the space for another 12 years. Nevertheless, Edmond is eager to find a new tenant. Other tenants are interested in coming on board, including a videogame store, a video store and a bank, on the "pads" that front Owens—but only if a major tenant opens. Over the last several months Edmond has contacted at least 20 grocers about taking over the space. He says he has three prospects and believes a lease will be signed before summer ends.
The West Las Vegas store reflects an industry at the crossroads. Wal-Mart is putting pressure on the chains, and independent retailers are trying to poach business in niche communities. Increasingly, says Frank White, a senior vice president with New Markets, the company trying to lease the shopping plaza, big chains don't have the skills to micromanage a variety of different kinds of stores—a store geared to Latino customers in one neighborhood and black customers in another.
"People tend to look at low- to moderate demographics and say that's not a market for them." says White. "What they're missing out on is an opportunity because you have a no-competition factor. You have the opportunity to dominate in a particular trade area."