Grocery Chain Interested in Shopping Center : * Santa Barbara Plaza: The proposal is likely to rekindle a debate in the predominantly black community. Residents weigh the need to preserve local economic control versus their desire for major stores.

A Utah-based grocery chain has been scouting the aging Santa Barbara Plaza shopping center in Crenshaw as a possible site for a giant supermarket and drugstore combination.

Representatives of Smith’s Food & Drug Centers of Salt Lake City have approached Mayor Tom Bradley and City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district includes the Crenshaw area, expressing interest in the site.

Whether the store will be built appears to depend in large part on how the proposal is received in the predominantly black Crenshaw community, where it is likely to rekindle a spirited debate over the need to preserve local economic control versus residents’ desire to have major stores with quality merchandise at reasonable prices close at hand.

That debate last flared a year ago when it was learned that Galanter in 1989 had rejected a proposal by developer Alexander Haagen to put an Ikea furniture store at Santa Barbara Plaza. Haagen is the developer of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, a regional shopping mall across from Santa Barbara Plaza.

Galanter said the Ikea store was not suitable because it would have generated too much traffic, would have displaced most of the existing businesses and would not have given black entrepreneurs a chance to develop the site.

Santa Barbara Plaza now holds the largest concentration of black-owned businesses in Los Angeles--about 250 retail stores, social service centers, a church and other facilities. But it is 35 years old, and merchants and property owners acknowledge that it is run-down and suffers from crime problems. They have been pushing the city to redevelop the site.

Although the Crenshaw commercial district is surrounded by the largest and most affluent black community in the West, residents have long complained about the unwillingness of major grocery and retail chains to locate there. In recent years, only Boys Markets has operated supermarkets in the area.

Now that is changing. A Lucky Stores market--at 43,000 square feet, one of the chain’s largest--is scheduled to open early next year in Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. If Smith’s builds in the area, the store would be about 80,000 square feet, and it would contain such amenities as a flower shop, restaurant, pharmacy, dry cleaner and video store.

The Salt Lake City chain has been scouting the Santa Barbara Plaza since August as part of its campaign to re-enter the California market. The chain pulled out seven years ago when it ran a struggling operation under the name of Smith’s Food King. Smith’s recently opened four king-size supermarkets in California and plans to build another 60 by 1995.

“They see California as a big growth market, and they are also committed to moving into ethnically diverse areas,” said Marci Blaze, whose Santa Monica public relations firm has been hired to represent Smith’s stores.

Blaze said the company views Santa Barbara Plaza as an attractive location because it is large enough to accommodate a king-size store and is close to an old Smith’s Food King location.

“They want to return to some of the neighborhoods they used to serve,” she said.

Galanter, who previously attracted considerable criticism for rejecting the Ikea store without much consultation with Crenshaw-area residents and community leaders, is taking a different tack this time. Last month, she sent letters to 100 community residents outlining Smith’s interest in Santa Barbara Plaza, stating, “I have not and will not make any decisions or commitments regarding the Smith . . . proposal until their representatives have discussed their plans with interested community groups and business organizations.”

The councilwoman plans to meet with Smith’s officials later this month.

“Whatever gets built must be something that is good for the community and provides the opportunity for local ownership,” Galanter said in an interview. “This is not another Ikea.”

Crenshaw residents and business operators expressed mixed views about the Smith’s proposal. Many said they were torn between a desire to preserve minority business ownership at Santa Barbara Plaza and a desire to have major stores with quality merchandise in the area.

“I think every opportunity should be given to minorities, particularly African-Americans,” said Joe Gardner, president of the Baldwin Hills Estates Homeowners Assn., “but if that is not a reality then I certainly want us to get the best opportunities we can.”

Samuel Hill Jr., a Baldwin Hills resident, agreed. “If we can’t find minority dollars to put in, then maybe we should settle for just dollars,” he said. “It is getting to the point where we need to put something in there and not just wait year after year for minority businesses.”

Sometime early next year the City Council is expected to consider a proposal to redevelop the Santa Barbara Plaza as part of the same project that revitalized the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. If approved, the project is expected to take at least two and perhaps four or more years to complete.

A recently released study urges Santa Barbara Plaza’s 40 property owners to set up a community-based development corporation to come up with a plan to oversee the plaza. The study suggests that the shopping center should be anchored by the addition of government and professional offices, a hotel or retail outlet.

Tony Howell, president of the 40-member association, said his initial reaction was that Smith’s might provide the anchor that Santa Barbara Plaza needs: “It sounds good to me. . . . A little competition would be good.”

Frank Holoman, owner of Boulevard Cafe at Santa Barbara Plaza, was more skeptical. “I don’t think it would stand a chance,” he said. “I would oppose it. I could see another business, but not another supermarket. It would not be the right kind of magnet for the area.”

Galanter, who organized a letter-writing campaign to persuade Lucky to open its market at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, said it “would be ironic if we wound up with a plethora of supermarkets after all the struggle we had to get one in.”

But Smith’s spokeswoman Blaze said competition is just what the food chain is looking for.

“That is their favorite environment,” Blaze said. “Most of their stores are in close proximity to other supermarkets. It would indeed be the kind of area they would want to go into.”