Empty Ralphs to become Trader Joe’s

The hole left by a shuttered Ralphs supermarket was bringing down its whole shopping center by killing business and attracting unwanted criminal activity, residents and business owners have complained for more than a year. But the owners of the property have announced a replacement that many residents have been asking for: Trader Joe’s.

The 15,000-square foot store is set for a remodel starting within weeks and could be finished by November, according to the Ayres family, who owns the property at Brookhurst Street and Hamilton Avenue, as well as a chain of hotels that includes the Huntington Beach Hotel.

“Oh, that’s great!” said Linda Blaylock, a nearby resident coming out of a salon at the center. “That way I can do some shopping a lot closer to home, and this place can’t have been good for the value of my house.”

The family also announced it would pour $2 million into the center, including new landscaping, paint and lighting.

The decision brings a community disgruntlement over the aging center to a close, more than a year after hundreds of residents and business owners turned out to a public meeting last March to register their outrage at the closed market. Residents said they saw graffiti and even drug deals out at the center when it was quiet at night. Their overwhelming first choice for a replacement? Trader Joe’s.

At the time, city officials said Ralphs still held a lease even though it closed the store, and there was little they could do but try to keep the Ayres family and Ralphs talking. But last fall the two parties managed to negotiate an early end to their lease, and Ayres was freed to seek a new tenant — even another market, something Ralphs was refusing to do.

“This is just what this place needs,” said Art Lozick, another resident. “They just left it to rot all year.”

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at michael.alexander@latimes.com.