Plans for new northeast Modesto shopping center become clear. Neighbors still rankled

Work is under way on a northeast Modesto shopping center that has faced legal challenges and opposition from some residents in a nearby neighborhood.

The Marketplace shopping center is being built on 18 acres at the southwest corner of Sylvan Avenue and Oakdale Road and will be anchored by a Save Mart grocery store.

Phase one of the center – which will consist of a roughly 50,000-square-foot grocery store and a roughly 10,000-square-foot retail store – is expected to open in about a year, said Dave Romano with Newman-Romano and the center’s land-use consultant.

The grocery store will be built in the south end of the shopping center and face toward Sylvan Avenue.

Romano said there is no timeline for when Phase 2 will start. The center is expected to have about 170,000 square feet of retail space at buildout. Berberian Holdings is the property owner and developer.

Romano said work started about a couple of months ago, and crews are making the site improvements, including installing the utilities. He said Save Mart will build its store, and Berberian Holdings will build the second building.

The work includes widening Oakdale Road and Sylvan Avenue where they front the center for merge and turn lanes, according to the city. Crews also will install a signal at the Oakdale-Post Office roads intersection for access to the center.

Save Mart spokeswoman Stacia Hill Levenfeld said the grocery chain is looking at a 2019 grand opening but could not provide a more definitive date. She said the store is in the design stages and will feature up-to-date offerings.

“We are excited to get started on this project,” she said, “and enhance our services in the community.”

A Save Mart official said in 2016 that the chain planned to close its nearby store in The Lakes shopping center at Oakdale Road and Floyd Avenue when the new store opens.

The official said Save Mart would transfer The Lakes employees to the new store and hire additional workers. The Marketplace store will be about 1 1/2 times bigger than The Lakes store, which opened in 1987.

“The intention is to close (the store) and move (the employees), but a final decision will be made closer to the grand opening of the new store,” Hill Levenfeld said.

She said Save Mart’s intention remains to find another tenant for its Lakes store.

Save Mart recently extended the lease for the store, though The Lakes has the ability to gain control of the site and lease it to another tenant if the grocery chain leaves it vacant, said Bob Kalof with Rybar/Modesto Associates, which owns the shopping center.

The Marketplace drew opposition from nearby Naraghi Lake-area homeowners. They argued the shopping center was not needed because there were too many empty stores in Modesto and it would worsen traffic. But proponents say the center will create jobs and increase shopping options.

The Naraghi Lakes Neighborhood Preservation Association sued Modesto in February 2014 over its approval of the project, claiming it was not consistent with state environmental law and the city’s general plan. But the association lost in court.

The hard feelings have not gone away for some residents.

“I’m very concerned about safety and traffic,” said Ashley Teague, who lives at Waterfall Court and Hashem Drive with her husband and their three young sons. The shopping center boundaries include Hashem, and workers are building an 8-foot-tall decorative masonry wall by the street.

The shopping center will have an entrance and exit for customers along Hashem and near Teague’s home. (The tractor-trailers making deliveries to Save Mart will use Oakdale Road, according to Romano, the land-use consultant.)

Teague also is concerned the center will attract the vagrants and homeless who now gather at The Lakes shopping center.

“No one knows what will happen to property values,” said Teague, who said she has stopped shopping at Save Mart in protest. “There has never been a store so big so close to the neighborhood.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2018 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Plans for new northeast Modesto shopping center become clear. Neighbors still rankled."