Though now boarded up and empty, the vacant lot on Telegraph Avenue where Andronico’s once stood might welcome a new CVS as early as next year.
After Andronico’s Community Markets declared bankruptcy last year, the company closed the Telegraph branch in December — an underperforming location that was a financial burden. The windows and doors were boarded up. The parking lot sat empty. Telegraph was now home to one more vacant lot.
Over the past few months, the Conference Claimants Endowment Board, which owns the lot at 2655 Telegraph, has been in talks with a number of companies to fill in the vacancy, including British supermarket chain Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, according to Frank Yoachum, a member of the board. Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates sent the owners a letter late last year expressing his desire to see a supermarket in the lot, reflecting the desire of many residents in the area.
In the end, however, the board chose to go with CVS Pharmacy. As of this month, CVS is currently in the early stages of applying for a permit, according to CVS spokesperson Michael DeAngelis.
Telegraph residents can expect to see the new CVS up and running by early 2013 if all goes to according to schedule, according to DeAngelis.
There are currently two CVS stores operating in Berkeley that came about from CVS’s 2008 purchase of Longs Drug store, said DeAngelis. In comparison, CVS’s competitor Walgreens pharmacy has a total of six locations operating in Berkeley.
DeAngelis said the new CVS would actively work to address concerns of community members who wanted to see a new supermarket by offering expanded food options on location.
“The neighbors have been very positive in wanting to make the (CVS) as attractive as possible,” according to LeConte Neighborhood Association President Karl Reeh.
CVS staff have been reaching out to the Le Conte Neighborhood Association members very frequently in recent weeks, Reeh said.
The impending opening of the new CVS comes as a relief to many who were concerned about the number of vacant lots littering Telegraph.
Now, in the meantime, residents have a number of ideas to keep the lot in good use before CVS officially moves in. Residents of the LeConte Neighborhood Association have been pitching ideas as to how the lot should be used in the months leading up to CVS’s opening. One such idea, according to Reeh, is to use the lot as an overflow parking lot for the Berkeley World Music Festival, a festival on Telegraph in the summer that showcases local talent.
Additionally, Reeh has said that the CVS would look into fencing off the entire property to keep the lot closed to homeless visitors.
Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district includes Telegraph and the Andronico’s lot, emphasized the difficulties of revitalizing Telegraph economically with so many vacant lots now dotting the street, including the newest at the intersection of Telegraph and Haste Street from the November building fire.
Nonetheless, Worthington remained optimistic about Telegraph’s future. In fact, a number of architects, planners and other experts plan on examining Telegraph on April 13th and 14th — focusing specifically on the vacancies and how to improve on them.
“I think it’s positive and exciting that we have these professionals willing to volunteer their time to come up with their plans on how to improve Telegraph,” Worthington said.
Jaehak Yu covers city government.
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It’s a shame CVS is moving here. I was happy when Andronicos left, but this is a worse option
I’d take ANYTHING if it were open late. My husband was sick last night, and both Walgreens here in the flatlands closed at 10 PM.
It would be nice if Safeway would go there. Their current location is a little far.
UGHH. WHY NOT FRESH AND EASY?!
Another fucking drug store?!? Why can’t we get a real grocery store near campus?!?
Because you don’t have residents around who will spend enough money on a supermarket. The city has created an area of low income residents. If you want a supermarket, the city should be willing to subsidize it to offset the affects of low income housing efforts that reduced the spending ability of the area.
Seriously, exactly where do you believe people are going to buy groceries if not in a supermarket. Andronicos started charging outrageous prices in the mid 90′s and eventually lost almost all their customers. Southside residents started going to the Whole Foods that isn’t quite as outrageous as Andronicos or to Berkeley Bowl which is far less on produce but about the same as Safeway on everything else. Both stores are almost always packed. The city’s definition of low income to qualify for the affordable units that are included in some of the new rental units is not exactly low income. It is an income up to around what lower level cops make in Berkeley, in the low $100,000 range.
I expect people to buy groceries from a supermarket. I am just pointing out how that area of Berkeley does not inspire a reasonably priced supermarket like Safeway or Luckys to move there. I hate how Berkeley either has high priced supermarkets or nothing. We talk about caring for the less fortunate, and then we go and tell them to buy premium priced food from Whole Foods.
If low income for affordable housing in Berkeley is accepting incomes of over $100K, it is hurting the city. When Safeway and Luckys hear affordable housing, they don’t think residents have high middle class incomes. Instead they look at the abandoned Andronicos and see graffiti and homeless, and think affordable housing means people who can’t afford to shop for groceries. The city has given itself an image problem, and that is why we have drug stores instead of supermarkets.
There used to be a Lucky’s in Berkeley in the CVS store on Shattuck, across the street from Safeway, but it closed around thirty years ago, and then Bills Drug store moved in. Bills was purchased by Long’s and then Long’s by CVS. There was another Lucky’s in the Trader Joe’s on College in Rockridge. Both were very busy and lower priced than CO-OP or Safeway. There are currently no Lucky’s in Norcal. It is complicated and CVS was involved:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Stores
Back then, people would speak of the Hill people, meaning higher income Berkeley residents, shopping at Safeway. At that time, the flatlands were fairly low income. One could drive up University and not see a white person on the street till around Grove, now called MLK. Safeway was the premium supermarket in Berkeley. The low priced markets were Lucky’s and CO-OP. There was a CO-OP in Andronicos on Shattuck as well as the Whole Foods on Ashby. Andronico’s was in the location on Solano and Telegraph but was known only as Park and Shop and was a low priced grocery store frequented by many students, certainly lower priced than Safeway. Then, around 1987 the Telegraph store was remodeled as a gourmet grocery store and the name changed to Andronico’s. Andronico’s used to carry items that one could not find anywhere else such as fresh truffles and chanterrelles, and a large variety of other mushrooms. The store was featured on the news and in the newspapers and was the premiere gourmet grocery store in the Bay Area. Then the Solano store was converted to an Andronico’s. When CO-OP folded, Andornico’s took over their locations. As other grocery stores started to carry a lot of the gourmet items, some of the uniqueness of Andronico’s wore off and yet Andronico’s response was to stop carrying as many gourmet items and raise its prices even higher. Berkeley Bowl, so named since the original location, the Any Mountain store on Shattuck was originally a Bowling Alley. Safeway wanted to open a regional super store at the location of its store at Shattuck and Oregon but the neighborhood group fought against it saying it would bring too much traffic and so Safeway closed the Oregon Street store and it sat vacant for years until Berkeley Bowl built a new store at the location in the late 1990′s. Safeway isn’t going to open a store on Telegraph since they are building super stores at their Shattuck and Claremont locations. It is not difficult to find affordable groceries in Berkeley. It just means going to Berkeley Bowl for produce and then Trader Joe’s for everything else. I don’t know where meat can be purchased at a reasonable cost. I guess, Safeway. The issue is that there is not going to be a grocery store within easy walking distance of the large southside student population.
Interesting!
Albertsons sold a bunch of stores to Luckys. So there are a number of Luckys in the Bay Area again.
On the way back from Cal games at AT&T Park, I would stop at the Safeway by the stadium and get groceries. Then bring them home on Bart. I don’t even consider Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods as grocery stores. They just aren’t meant for people on a budget who want a large selection.
With Berkeley’s Asian student population, a 99 Ranch would thrive in that location. As it is, many Asian students with cars go to the 99 Ranch in Albany.
That neighborhood could easily support a supermarket. Telegraph & Derby is far from being a low-income area.
If the area could support a supermarket, then they wouldn’t have to bring in the CVS. Unless the board got an outrageous offer from CVS, which I doubt, the only reason a supermarket is not being put in place is because the supermarkets don’t like the location.
Well, presumably Safeway won’t move in there because a store there would cannibalize their businesses on N. Shattuck and College. Whole Foods, same deal–there’s a store just a few blocks away. Albertson’s/Lucky is barely viable as a chain. What does that leave?
And I guess the recent failure of a supermarket in that location would probably give other chains pause–maybe you’re right, but maybe the problem is that area is saturated with supermarkets as it is (Berkeley Bowl isn’t far away either).
But more than the issue of whether a supermarket will be successful in that location at this time, my point was that the neighborhood south of Dwight and east of Shattuck is not a low-income neighborhood.
I am glad the neighborhood is doing well. I wonder why there was so much worry about not getting a grocery store in this location when those other grocery stores seem to be pretty close?
I think for students its not close enough. Anyway I’d just like a not-CVS in that location
No, Fresh and Easy wanted to locate there and presumably others would have too. CVS preempted the process and made arrangements with the landlords before it was even publicly announced that Andronicos was closing the location. The fact that Andronicos new management has very strong ties to Whole Foods is probably another factor that has not been mentioned in this thread at all.
“In the late summer of 2009 Bill Andronico hired then consultant
Justin Jackson to evaluate the company’s operations. As a seasoned
veteran most recently VP of Purchasing with Whole Foods Pacific
Northwest, Jackson analyzed the situation and put together a new
executive leadership team in May 2010 beginning with John Clougher as
President and COO and Steve Epidendio as VP of Operations.
Both Clougher and Epidendio were former Whole Foods Execs, Clougher,
former President of Pacific Northwest Region and Epidendio, former VP
of Ops Norcal Region. Epidendio had also spent nine years as an
Andronico’s store director during the late 80″s and early 90′s.
A month later Jackson and Clougher reached out to former colleague
and past Whole Foods Norcal President Anthony Gilmore to join the team
as Chief Strategist and Administrative Officer. Gilmore also held the
position with Safeway as VP of Corporate Lifestyle and New Concept
Development and Corporate Perishables 2007 to 2010.
Fall 2010, together they are restructuring the corporate support
team to begin building a operations focused and talented seasoned team.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andronico%27s
That location is at the limit of easy walking distance of the majority of the large Southside student population. There are no other possible locations for a supermarket on the Southside within easy walking distance. The City should not approve a use permit for CVS in that location. If one is approved, then it should be stipulated that most of the floor space has to be used to sell groceries similar to the stipulations on Berkeley Bowl’s use permit on Oregon Street.
Low income? You’re kidding. Maybe the college students.
Absolutely ridiculous
how many CVS and Walgreens stores does Berkeley need? There has to be some limit on how much toothpaste Berkeley residents need to consume.
CVS employees told me they were moving into the Andronico’s on Telegraph months before Andronico’s closed. This was even before Andronicos publicly announced the closing of the Telegraph store. On hearing this, I phoned Kriss Worthington’s office and stated my displeasure with a CVS moving in that location with a Walgreens just a few blocks down Telegraph as well as all the other Berkeley locations. I did not speak with him but his aide who indicated she was unaware of CVS’s plans. There could not have been any earnest discussions regarding moving a supermarket in to that location. CVS had obviously negotiated with the owners of the property even before it was publicly announced that Andronico’s was closing the store. That is the only supermarket within relatively easy walking distance of the large Southside student population. Berkeley is allegedly so concerned with people not driving and yet the City is going to allow a non supemarket use in the only supermarket location that is available on the Southside close to the student population. Wow, really makes sense. The Telegraph store used to do a very high volume of business before Andronico’s started charging prices that were completely out of line with other supermarkets. As an example, prior to about three years ago, when Andronico’s lowered some of their prices, the standard price for a regular Dannon/Wallaby/Clover etc Yogurt was about 40% more than any other supermarket charged. $1.40 versus 99 cents. It was unbelievable that Andronico’s management believed that they could charge those prices in Berkeley. The only explanation is that they set all their prices by what was possible in their San Francisco stores. The store on Shattuck used to do so much business that there was always a line of cars waiting in the parking lot for a space. Prior to Andronico’s, when the store was a COOP, it was rumored to have the highest sales volume of any supermarket west of the Mississippi, and it seemed to do as much business if not more after re-opening as Andronico’s. There was always a wait to check out, even with every register operating.
Jesus.
Please seek professional help.
Why? Sounded like a good response to me. Maybe you’re the one who needs help?
The question then arises : if the co-op was doing so much business, why did it fold?
“During the 1960s there were a series of hotly contested elections to
the co-op board, in which a politically left opposition faction
represented by board member Robert Treuhaft
ran its own independent slate of candidates in opposition to “official”
slate. This faction held a brief-lived majority on the board in 1969.
The de facto division of the co-op board into two parties continued until the end, with many issues narrowly decided on a 5-4 vote.
The co-op’s final demise in 1988 has been attributed to a number of
factors, including too rapid expansion, political infighting over
issues like consumer boycotts, and the board’s failure to negotiate
concessions from its employees’ union during its decline.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers%27_Cooperative_of_Berkeley
In other words, those responsible for the co-op’s management made poor decisions. Kind of sounds like what happened with Andronico’s, doesn’t it?
The fact that Treuhaft was the husband of Jessica Mitford explains a lot…
While I don’t doubt that you are offering an accurate assessment of the Berkeley retail grocery scene, methinks you miss the point a bit. The reason why outlets such as Safeway and Trader Joe’s steer clear of Berkeley is simply the frustration of having to deal with a town full of NIMBYesque micro-managing control freaks, where every loose wheel showing up to a City Planning or City Council meeting thinks he/she/it is providing some great service to the world by pontificating on who should and should not be “allowed” to open a particular type of business, beyond genuine business concerns and simple health/safety/zoning issues. Not saying that you’re a member of that crowd, it seems some of those pissing and moaning about a lack of suitable businesses don’t realize that Berkeley, both as a city and a cultural entity, has a genius for driving off businesses that simply don’t see any upside to move into the city proper, when most of their customers have vehicles and can drive to Oakland/Emeryville/Albany, actually find a place to PARK, and not have the usual Berkeley issues such as panhandlers, homeless, and the fruit-loop protesters who think the rest of the world really gives a shit about their particular dietary preferences. I know as a student living in the “flats” and normally shopping at the Safeway on College and 51st, I would prefer to drive to the newly-opened (at the time) Trader Joe’s in Emeryville vs. the hassle of going anywhere in Berkeley to shop.
There is a Trader Joe’s in Berkeley at the NW corner of University and MLK.
Must have opened in the last 10-15 years.
yeah a lot has changed in that time, did you think things don’t change? Your responses, in general, indicate that.
Students would LOVE a REAL supermarket option on southside!! And they HATE taking buses or bumming rides off friends to go get food at a store that isnt some stupid suburban or yuppie pandering store! PLUS its much cheaper to buy snacks and munchables at a grocery market (besides Costco etc..) than ridiculous stores like CVS, Wallgreens, corner stores, liquor stores, and the busy restaurants near the school.
Almost EVERYONE I talk to since moving to southside (spent 2 years on northside and now 2 on southside) say that a supermarket that is reasonably priced would be nice. Andronicos IS NOT but a typical store such a Safeway or Luckys or Albertsons would do fine there, especially if the landowners dont charge crazy rent.
It’s not some kind of giant conspiracy by the landlords.
Students may all say that they would patronize a supermarket on southside, but if it were truly economically viable, there would be one already.
You know that there was once a Safeway in Berkeley, right? They pulled out in the early 1990′s when they simply decided that store wasn’t making adequate revenues. This is the store where a certain asshole Berkeley prof (one from the various race/class/gender grievance peddlers) used to haul his students into to conduct his lectures on how evil capitalists were exploiting the working people. Well surprise, a city with an anti-business, anti-capitalism environment is all in arms because people won’t set up shop in their community?
As we used to say, f*ck you if you can’t take a joke. Walk to the Safeway in Oaktown if you want to buy groceries. There’s a reason why some of chose to live in Oakland, Albany, El Cerrito, ANYWHERE but in Berkeley proper when we went to Cal…
There are also people who love Berkeley, so screw you.
This is a reply to Tony M….
There still is a Safeway in Berkeley. It closed less than two weeks ago for remodeling.
http://www.safewayonshattuck.com/
Safeway is significantly increasing the size of the North Shattuck store, similar to the College/Claremont and Albany stores. This has been in the planning stages since at least 2007. Actually since way before 2007. I can recall it being discussed at least five years before that.
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/council5/safeway.html
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-04-18/article/29774?headline=Commentary-What-North-Shattuck-Needs–By-Fred-Dodsworth
http://home.comcast.net/~loccna/ns/index.html
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-06-26/article/30430?headline=Neighbors-Oppose-Safeway-s-Plans-to-Expand-Shattuck-Avenue-Store–By-Riya-Bhattacharjee
The Safeway that closed was located on the present site of Berkeley Bowl at Shattuck and Oregon. Safeway wanted to expand that store to be a regional super store but the neighborhood group effectively thwarted their plans and so they closed the store entirely. Thought that was back in the 80′s though it could have been the early 90′s. All I remember about that store is that it was robbed at least once a week. That was a fairly low income neighborhood at the time. It has significantly gentrified since Berkeley Bowl moved there. Berkeley Bowl wanted to have a very large produce and Asian food section in the new store, an expansion of the old store, but another community group, The Community Committee for a Full Service Super-Market….
http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/contentdisplay.aspx?id=464
…lobbied for a full scale grocery store and so the new Berkeley Bowl finally was approved with the proviso that it had to be a full service grocery store. The produce and Asian food selection is less than in the old location, the Any Mountain store, which property, I believe is owned by Berkeley Bowl. It was completely bizarre after the move; the 1/3 of the store devoted to produce would have about 90% of the customers and the 2/3 of the store devoted to full service groceries would see about 10% of the customers. It is not so much like that anymore, partly because a lot of the old Berkeley Bowl’s customer base switched to Monterey Market, but still some grocery aisles are almost always nearly vacant. At the time and prior to Any Mountain, Kirala wanted to expand into the Asian Food section of the old Berkeley Bowl, but the neighborhood group was opposed because they did not want Kirala’s customers to be able to use the additional parking of the Berkeley Bowl store as it would allegedly draw cars to the neighborhood. If I recall correctly, the stipulation was that the parking lot had to be empty by 7:30 and no alcohol served after that time or something along those lines. This was not acceptable to Kirala and so they did not expand as they had planned.
re: Current Student
The Andronico’s location is the only possible site for a supermarket on the Southside. The highest and best use for that property is a supermarket and definitely not a CVS. There is already a Walgreens on Telegraph and about six or seven other Berkeley locations. There are 2 CVS in Berkeley as it is. Southside needs a supermarket within walking distance of the large student population. If CVS is granted a use permit, there will be no supermarket on the southside because there is no other possible location for a supermarket. Andronicos management should have realized a long, long, time ago that it was absurd to price products far above what those identical products sell for at any other supermarket. Sure they got extra profit per sale but their sales volume dwindled to nothing. It made no sense at all, except that perhaps those prices could be charged at their San Francisco locations and they charged the same prices at every store. Supermarkets typically make a profit on high volume and low margin, not low volume and high margin. When the Andronicos name was mentioned in conversation during the last fifteen years or thereabouts, the comments were always with regard to how overpriced everything was and how irritating it was that one could not walk to a local supermarket and shop due to outrageous pricing and had to drive. That is why the Andronicos on Telegraph and other locations including Palo Alto lost their customer base.
Oh and CVS is a supermarket??
We don’t need a CVS thank you. Berkeley Bowl for example is stunning to any guest I have in Berkeley. We need more examples of positive business models.