GROCERY STRIKE HURTS OPENINGS AT NEW MALL.Byline: Susan Abram Staff Writer VALENCIA - By now, Diane Knight expected a flow of customers who had become hooked on her triple chocolate-chip cookies, candied can·died adj. Permeated, covered, encrusted, or cooked with sugar: candied sweet potatoes. candied Adjective coated with or cooked in sugar: apples and dark, rich brownies. As the owner of Lady Di's Cookies inside Valencia's new Westridge Village shopping center shopping center, a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marketplaces—in that the shops are usually amalgamated into , Knight is still optimistic op·ti·mist n. 1. One who usually expects a favorable outcome. 2. A believer in philosophical optimism. op . Her packaged baked goods, which are shipped, are still a hit. But like other business owners along the 100,000-square-foot neighborhood shopping center, she wonders when the Albertson's grocery store next door - the store that anchors the center and is expected to draw customers - will open and attract more shoppers to the center. ``It definitely would help us,'' she recently said. ``This is a high-rent area. It's been a tough beginning for us.'' Most businesses in the Westridge shopping center opened without much fanfare two months ago, but the 50,000-square-foot Albertson's building remains locked. Its opening hinges on the end of the supermarket strike and lockout lockout, intentional closing up of a company, factory, or shop by an employer to prevent employees from working during a strike or labor dispute. The term lockout that started Oct. 11. Negotiations are continuing in the job action. ``We'll open when the strike's over,'' said Chance Tidyman, property administrator for Regency Centers, the developers and owners of the Westridge center. ``The strike has been a hindrance, but there is still some work being done out there.'' Regency Centers, based in Jacksonville, Fla., develops, owns and operates grocery-anchored shopping centers nationwide. The company owns 268 retail properties totaling 28.6 million square feet in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and boasts an average 96 percent occupancy rate Noun 1. occupancy rate - the percentage of all rental units (as in hotels) are occupied or rented at a given time pct, per centum, percent, percentage - a proportion in relation to a whole (which is usually the amount per hundred) . In 2002, Regency bought the Valencia property at Valencia Boulevard and The Old Road from The Newhall Land and Farming Company The Newhall Land and Farming Company is a land management company based in Valencia, California, United States. The company is responsible for the master community planning of Valencia, as well as the management of farm land elsewhere in the state. . Twelve of Regency's 14 shopping centers in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, have supermarkets affected by the strike and lockout, Tidyman said. The centers are full of other businesses affected by the labor dispute because customers drive elsewhere to shop for food, make fewer trips to these shopping centers and so do not drop in. ``As far as foot traffic, those people are anxious to have some,'' he said. ``We are about 98 percent leased there.'' Indeed, business owners at Westridge say that, without the grocery store, motorists hesitate to drive into the center. Pylons line the front of Albertson's, creating a parking lot that looks closed. Across the way along The Old Road, builders are still working on more than 600 single-family houses, 330 attached town homes and 470 rental apartments expected to send customers to Westridge Village. ``We were really slow to begin with, and though it's getting better, we thought by now we would have more customers,'' said Veronica Pedrani, an associate manager at the Planet Beauty, a beauty-supply store. ``It's definitely affected us,'' said a sales associate at Wear Me Out, a casual fashion shop next door. ``The customers who come do spend money, but it's day-to-day here.'' At nearby Hangers hangers used for hanging x-ray films to dry. There is a clip type, with a clip at each corner, and a channel type in which the film sits in channels in the sides of the frame. Cleaners, manager Moon Lee said the supermarket strike has affected her decision to hire more workers. ``If we had more business, we could hire more people,'' she said. Susan Abram, (661) 257-5257 susan.abram(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1) Diane Knight, owner of Lady Di's Cookies, finds business hurt by the grocery strike that has delayed opening Delayed opening Postponement of the start of trading in a stock until correction of a gross imbalance in buy and sell orders. Such an imbalance is likely to follow on the heels of a significant event such as a takeover offer. See: Suspended trading. of the anchor supermarket at Valencia's new Westridge Village shopping center. (2) Veronica Pedrani stocks shelves at Planet Beauty, among shops hurt by supermarket opening delays. David R. Crane/Staff Photographer |
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