Fresh & Easy's Wednesday Opening Marks New Chapter for Shopping Center

The curtain is rising on the next act of the the shopping center on the northwest corner of El Toro and Trabuco roads as the first of two new anchor tenants—Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market—is slated to open Wednesday at 10 a.m..  Walgreens, the other tenant, will open in March.

Fresh & Easy and Walgreens will subdivide the 30,000-square-foot space formerly occupied by Vons, which opted out of its lease three years ago.  The 75,700-square-foot center includes Pet Country, a nail salon, a laundry facility, a veterinarian, Subway and Lamppost Pizza.

Fresh & Easy describes itself as “a lean, green savings machine” that offers its own brand of products and prepared meals with no artificial colors, flavors or trans fats, along with some top name brands.  The stores emphasize green living—right down to parking stalls outside reserved for hybrid cars.

Thomas Chau, the manager at the new Fresh & Easy, said Lake Forest is “a great neighborhood where we’re really excited to do business.”  He said  the neighbors in the shopping center and the community appear to be looking forward to the grand opening.

The center's exterior is nearing completion of a more-than-$1-million total remodel that will leave it with Craftsman facade similar to that of the Orchard, a recently overhauled shopping center farther west on El Toro Road. Those facades are in line with the shopping center design guidelines jointly drawn up by city officials, developers and property owners in the mid-1990s. Those guidelines include using natural materials, such as wood and stone, and exposing the rafters.

“The cooperative process has made a tremendous difference in the appearance and economic vitality of the area," Mayor Peter Herzog said, adding that the design guidelines have been "received overwhelmingly" by property owners.

While the shopping center is in the zone of Lake Forest designated for redevelopment, the center's overhaul in itself is not, technically, a redevelopment project, said Assistant City Manager David Belmer. Rather than pledging money to the property owner, Lake Forest's Redevelopment Agency worked to induce a climate where the owner and others would want to make their properties look nicer, Belmer said.

"We have largely invested our money in the public spaces: in the roadways, and in the medians, and making sure that those are as good as they could be to set the table for the private property owners to make their own improvements," Belmer said.

Tenants in the shopping center are glad to see the end of the construction process, which lasted more than six months.  While Katie Berger, owner of , a pet health food store in the center, was happy that the remodel was likely to attract new customers, she described the process as a “nightmare.”  Because of disruptions to the parking lot, a leaking roof during the construction and periods of time without signs, there were complaints to the landlord, who ended up discounting rent for a month, Berger said.

A Subway employee said, “The construction was a hassle, but it’s over now,” while a Premier Staffing employee said it was “an inconvenience, but it’s almost done.”

Charles Ball, a partner in Business Properties, which has signed leases with Fresh & Easy and Walgreens, was unavailable for comment.