PITTSBURG — In fast-growing, far-western Pittsburg, where there is no grocery store and healthy food options are few and far between, a major organic food market will soon break ground.
Pittsburg officials celebrated the planned Sprouts with an “unveiling celebration” for the organic food market last week at the site next to Ray Giacomelli Park on San Marco Boulevard and West Leland Road. It will be the sixth grocery store – along with some smaller markets – in this city of some 79,000 residents and one of just a few to focus on organics.
The Arizona-based Sprouts Farmers Market, which operates more than a dozen other stores in the Bay Area, including ones in Brentwood, San Ramon and Walnut Creek, offers a wide variety of natural and organic foods, selling fresh produce, bulk foods, vitamins and some international cuisine. The 23,204-square-foot store will be centrally located near the Vista del Mar, Oak Hills and San Marco housing developments where it’s not unusual to find homes selling for nearly $1 million.
An estimated 12,500 people live within a mile of the future grocery store and another 18,000 north of nearby Highway 4 in Bay Point. But other than a gas station on the northwest corner of West Leland Road and San Marco Boulevard, there’s not been any commercial development in the area since 1990 when the Oak Hills Shopping Center, which has a grocery, was built some five miles away, according to Jordan Davis, the city’s director of community and economic development.
The City Council began working with developer Sierra Pacific Properties to plant the seed for a grocery store in 2020, rezoning the land to allow commercial development. That same year the council approved $850,000 for a new traffic signal along West Leland Road at the entrance to the project site to both improve vehicle and pedestrian safety and make the site more economically viable.
While grocery businesses were struggling pre-pandemic, sales skyrocketed during it as people focused on cooking and eating at home, said Doug Messner, president of Sierra Pacific Properties, said. Meanwhile, western Pittsburg grew as people began working from home and new housing developments sprung up to accommodate those who could afford to live farther from work for less expensive — often larger — homes, he said.
To fill the need, his company is developing the 3.69-acre site, which it will call San Marco Commercial Center, with Sprouts as its anchor. The development also will feature a new yet-to-be-named fast-food drive-through and full-service restaurant along with space for several other small retail businesses.
“When I was growing up in Pittsburg, never would I have imagined that in this area, west of Bailey Road, homes would regularly sell for $1 million, that there would be high-end apartments complexes with state-of-the-art amenities, that we would have incredible community parks, new schools, and trails connecting it all,” Mayor Shanelle Scales-Preston said.
Chamber of Commerce CEO Wolfgang Croskey and others have worked hard to try to bring a new grocery store or begin a co-op after the last store left in 2019. They even set up a Project Grocery Store Facebook page and held festive events to drum up interest and regularly encourage the community to take part in their efforts to entice a grocery store to the area.
Croskey said he looks forward to Sprouts becoming part of the city’s business community.
“We hope that the addition of Sprouts will be a catalyst for commercial in the western portion of Pittsburg,” he said. “The residents of that section of town are in need of services and retailers to serve their needs.”
The Planning Commission approved signage and design plans for parts of the project, including the drive-through and retail pad, after a short discussion just days before the unveiling celebration.
Some commissioners, though, balked at the idea of another fast-food drive-through – there are ones at every exit off Highway 4 in Pittsburg – and noted they increase greenhouse gas emissions because of idling vehicles. Other commissioners, however, noted COVID is still with us, late-night commuters might appreciate a late bite to eat, and the site will be landscaped with more than 100 trees and bushes that will help reduce the effects of the emissions.
The project is expected to break ground in the spring and be completed within 18 months.
“Even more than the tax dollars (the store will bring), it is creating more of a sense of community as well, so that you feel like you know, you don’t have to go outside your community to shop,” Scales-Preston said. “You can do it right there.”
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