Grocer cancels flagship location

Luxury grocer Dean & DeLuca has unexpectedly canceled plans to install a 23,000-square-foot West Coast flagship store at Fashion Island.

The gourmet store was expected to be installed in a new, 83,000-square-foot building adjacent to the center’s Atrium Court, along with fellow new tenant Dick’s Sporting Goods, which takes up 42,000 square feet, according to Daily Pilot reports.

“We’ve just been informed by Dean & DeLuca that they’re not moving forward with the store in Fashion Island,” Irvine Co. spokesman John Christensen said. “We’re very surprised and disappointed, and believe that they would have been a wonderful addition, not only to our center but to Newport Beach.”

The food store, first announced in 2007, was expected to open this fall. Dean & DeLuca recently stated plans to add more departments to the store, with the projected opening pushed back to mid-2010.

Original announcements said the store would be 23,000 square feet.

“We have been searching for quite some time for the ideal location for a West Coast flagship store and I believe we have finally found it,” company Chairman Leslie Rudd said in a 2007 release. “Not only is Fashion Island a great match demographically for Dean & DeLuca, but we believe the coastal lifestyle embodied in Newport Beach is a perfect fit for the Dean & DeLuca brand. We have no doubt that this new development at Fashion Island will be nothing less than sensational.”

The decision apparently was abrupt; the retailer discussed its plans for Fashion Island in public as recently as last week.

“We plan to open our Newport Beach market in summer 2010,” a Dec. 17 Twitter post by a company representative read. “No date has been set in stone.”

Christensen said the center is now looking for a replacement tenant.

Representatives at Dean & DeLuca were not immediately available for comment.

The Kansas-based company also operates a store in Napa Valley; this would have been its first Southern California store. It got its start in New York City in 1977, and operates in luxury destinations around the world.