MONTECITO HEIGHTS : Long-Awaited Supermarket Opens

After months of searching for a market to replace one that burned during last year’s riots, supermarket owners were joined by city officials in celebrating the official opening of a Big Saver Food Warehouse last week.

The opening of the former Figueroa Market creates an additional 25 jobs, in addition to the 20 employees who were kept on, said economic development consultant Michael Banner.

The store, Banner said, offers more modern equipment and competitive prices.

Owner Uka Solanki, whose markets in South-Central and Koreatown burned in the riots, decided to lease the 25,000-square-foot market at 2619 N. Figueroa St. after he could not find a comparable place in South-Central, Banner said. The former market was at Arlington and Vernon avenues.

“We were leasing the site there and it was the typical thing where the owner didn’t want to rebuild,” Banner said.

The Solanki Corp. also owns a Shop Wise Market at Slauson Avenue and Compton Boulevard and markets in El Sereno and Lincoln Heights.

The Mid-town Market at 9th Street and Vermont Avenue in Koreatown reopened across the street in a much smaller space after the building it had occupied burned during the riots and was sold, he said.

The purchase of the market on Figueroa Street was funded through a $355,000 loan from the Small Business Assn. A disaster-assistance loan of $250,000 from the Small Business Fund of the city’s Community Development Department was used to renovate the existing market and buy new equipment.

“We have made 140 loans from this particular fund, which is approximately $60 million,” said Parker Anderson, general manager of the Community Development Department, after the Thursday celebration. “That generated 1,600 jobs.

“The whole idea of our program is to finance neighborhood-based economic developments in low-income neighborhoods.”

Solanki said he hopes supermarket chains that are expressing interest in the inner city stay committed over the years.

“I believe the families that live in the inner cities have the same basic needs as those families in the suburbs, and should have access to the same high-quality shopping experience,” he said.