Price Club

The City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, has approved an agreement that will lead to a larger Price Club discount store as part of an $18-million retail center. The complex, to be built within three years by San Diego-based Price Co., will cover 31 acres at Todd Avenue and Foothill Boulevard. City Administrator Julio Fuentes said the deal is expected bring the city $35 million in tax revenue over the 25-year life of the center. "It's a biggie," he said.

The USC School of Public Policy is getting a $50-million donation from the charity established by the founder of the Price Club warehouse-style shopping chain, university officials plan to announce Tuesday. The school will be renamed for the late Sol Price, who earned an undergraduate and law degree from USC and went on to success in discount membership retailing and in real estate investments. Price died in 2009 and his wife, Helen, who also graduated from USC, died the year before.

Signal Hill Mayor Louis Dare (Southeast / Long Beach sections, July 19) stated (in a letter) that "not all Willow Ridge residents are opposed to the Price Club." While this is true, those who are opposed make up 80% of the residents who live at Willow Ridge. On a citywide scale, the petitions submitted to the City Council at the public hearing regarding the disposition and development agreement contained approximately 275 signatures from individuals opposed to the Price Club. Of those, approximately 140 were generated by Willow Ridge residents, while the balance represents citizens from throughout Signal Hill.

Sol Price, who changed the retail industry by founding the landmark warehouse chain Price Club, has died. He was 93. Price died of natural causes Monday at his home in La Jolla, according to a statement released by his family. "He was an innovator, he was generous, he was philanthropic," his son Robert said in an interview. "He was a really remarkable man, but he was just 'Dad' in our family." Price pioneered the discount membership warehouse club concept in 1976 when he and Robert opened the first Price Club in San Diego.

Price Club will add 15,000 square feet and several new departments to its Oxnard store, but the retailer denies that the expansion is intended as a salvo against the scheduled opening this fall of a nearby Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. "Oxnard is one of our best locations," said Deborah Davis, spokeswoman for parent company Price Co. "We had this expansion planned before Wal-Mart and Sam's Club made their announcement."

The Calabasas Planning Commission on Thursday will discuss plans to build a Price Club warehouse store at Lost Hills and Agoura roads. Neighbors of the proposed 126,800-square-foot discount store fear that it would cause traffic jams in the Las Virgenes Valley. But it also promises to generate thousands of dollars in sales tax revenue for the city each year. A public hearing will be held on the project Feb. 11. The Planning Commission meets at 7:30 p.m. in City Hall.

The Pomona Redevelopment Agency, which paid $518,000 for a half-acre lot at the northwest corner of Garey Avenue and Philadelphia Street, will resell it to the owners of the nearby Price Club for $66,648 under an agreement made four years ago. The agreement approved this week by the City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, carries out a commitment made in 1985 when the Price Co. agreed to open an outlet in Pomona.

In response to the letters to the editor concerning the Price Club that have been appearing lately, I would like to set the record straight. I believe the City Council (despite what some would have you believe) is trying to work for the benefit of everyone using city services, including the Willow Ridge residents. To provide these services, it takes money. Approximately 55% of the income to the city comes from the sales tax. It is estimated that the Price Club would gross $100 million annually.

The Price Co. on Friday announced that it had acquired sites in Sunnyvale and Prince George's County, Md., where it will locate its 28th and 29th Price Clubs. The Sunnyvale land includes a building which will house the newest of Price's Northern California stores. Price, which currently operates 24 Price Club wholesale stores, has announced openings in Meadowlands, N.J.; Smithtown, N.Y. and South San Francisco.

Gateway Marketplace, heralded as a godsend when it opened in economically depressed Southeast San Diego nine months ago, will soon close because of sluggish sales. The supermarket, the largest retail operation to locate in the area in more than a decade, will shut "within the next few weeks" and reopen as an expanded, membership-only Price Club warehouse, said Jim Cahill, a member of the Marketplace board of directors.

THE first Club Med I ever saw was on the islands of Guadeloupe in the 1960s. At that time, some of its accommodations were cots on a white-sand beach under an open-sided tent. Nonetheless, I thought it was the most exciting tropical resort on Earth. One of the staff members, barefoot and clad only in khaki shorts, was a former Air France executive who had discovered the company on a business trip to Guadeloupe. He resigned from Air France and said he would spend the rest of his life in paradise.

Boston Red Sox executives said they will sell the team to the highest bidder even if the new owner wants to move out of Fenway Park. Justin Morreale, a lawyer for the Yawkey Trust, which owns a 53% controlling interest in the Red Sox, said Wednesday that he expects the club to fetch the highest price in baseball history.

Owners of the local Price Club are proposing city officials make an exception to voter-approved requirements and allow a personal storage warehouse in the Southpark area, officials said. Price Enterprises has applied for a permit to build an 85,000-square-foot storage complex near Price Club in the Southpark shopping center. The addition would exceed the site's 1988 voter-proscribed building capacity by 60,000 square feet.

By their fruits, you shall know them: Forty Granny Smiths, seven-bunch bananas. By their dry goods, you shall know them: rice in a 10-pound sack, a cracker box as big as the Ritz. And by their cleaning and paper products you shall certainly know them: Tide in the 20-gallon jug, 35-roll count of toilet paper.

The April 1 article criticizing our efforts to save taxpayers' money by closing certain warehouse operations and making state government more competitive missed the mark. More than a year ago, we started the process of reforming how the state buys the $4 billion worth of goods and services it needs each year. To help us, we went to the private sector and asked accounting firms from around the country to submit bids for their work, ultimately selecting the firm of Ernst & Young. Among the first money-saving opportunities we found were warehouse operations in Northern and Southern California that stored and shipped office supplies--pencils, pens, paper, etc.--to government offices around the state.

Oh, boy, did I get a message from that Feb. 18 article ("Measure Highlights Cities' Hunger for Sales Tax Dollars") on cities and what they do to get shopping centers. We watched the city of Oxnard "give it away" to Wal-Mart, Price Club, the Oxnard Outlet Mall, ad nauseam, while more and more locally owned businesses just lost heart and closed. We are currently watching the city of Ventura attempt to "give it away" to the Buenaventura Mall while most of the locally owned "little guys" on Main Street and elsewhere just fade away.

Gateway Marketplace--the largest retail operation to open in Southeast San Diego in more than 10 years--will close Sunday to begin renovations for a Price Club, a Marketplace board member said Wednesday. After being open for nine months, the store announced its closure in early August. The announcement coincided with an agreement between the Price Co. and the San Diego College of Retailing to turn the facility into a members-only Price Club.

Putting to rest a potential watershed issue for fledgling Calabasas, the Price Club has withdrawn a proposal to build a massive retail outlet near one of the city's three freeway off-ramps, a company official said Monday. "The company has decided not to purchase the site, because of a lack of support from the city," said Lois Miller, vice president of planning for Price Club.

After ironing out the final details, Simi Valley officials on Wednesday announced that a massive Price Club store will be built in western Simi Valley by next spring, bringing 150 to 200 new jobs to the city. The announcement ended months of negotiations with city officials, who have agreed to pay for more than $500,000 worth of road improvements and development fees that otherwise would be owed by Price-Costco.

At the Paladion mall, a sleek downtown citadel patrolled by well-dressed guards with earphones, a customer from Mexico walks in and buys $60,000 worth of designer suits at the Bernini boutique. He pays cash. At Price Club 10 miles to the south, a suburban bastion of U.S. consumer culture, the bustle of Spanish-speaking families and cars with yellow Baja California license plates resembles a Mexican marketplace.