The City of San Leandro is working with developer Innisfree Ventures II to develop a retail center at 1550 East 14th Street, the site of the former Albertsons grocery store. Current design concepts for the Village Marketplace envision a high-quality, Mediterranean-style neighborhood retail center of roughly 28,000 square feet, anchored by a specialty grocery store. Negotiations with tenants are still in progress, however, the developer has received letters of intent from grocer Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Chipotle, and AT&T. The design concepts include additional retail and restaurant spaces with outdoor dining, and a public plaza and gathering place with a fountain.

Visioning for this priority development site in downtown San Leandro began approximately five years ago when a 27-member Citizens Advisory Committee worked for two years on the City’s award-winning Transit Oriented Development Strategy. Design concepts in the TOD Strategy included a neighborhood retail center with a residential component on the upper floors. Give the significant changes that have taken place in real estate markets since 2007, development of residential units above retail are not financially feasible for the foreseeable future. The proposed retail component remains generally consistent with what was proposed in the TOD Strategy.

The City entered into an Exclusive Negotiating Rights Agreement with Innisfree in September 2009 and has been working on plans for this site for the past two years. Information regarding retailers the community would like to see downtown has been collected over the years from a Downtown San Leandro website survey as well as a letter writing campaign. The Village Marketplace proposed tenants Peet’s Coffee & Tea and Chipotle were a result of these efforts.

Additional information and documents:

• Site Plan and Additional Graphics (4.7mb)
• Fresh & Easy Presentation from November 2, 2011 Community Workshop (1.1mb)