Retailers battle rising land costs with creative thinking; executives find going underground proves profitable.

Southland retailers are opening outlets underground, placing parking in unconventional places and opening mini-outlets half the size of typical stores, all in an effort to cope with a property-scarce real estate market.

"We don't have any choice," said Patrick Barber, vice president of real estate for La Habra-based Food 4 Less. "Land is expensive."

"We are looking at configurations we haven't done in the past," he said.

Food 4 Less is finishing the interior of a 33,000-square-foot Alpha Beta market in downtown Los Angeles that will be on ground level but with parking in the rear instead of in front and with housing and retail space above.

The apartments above the market opened in 1992 and are fully occupied by senior citizens. The 20,000 square feet of retail space is still vacant, said Karen Mayer, property administrator with Chinatown-based LYW Development, the project's developer. The market is expected to open this summer.

Separate parking for the retail shops and housing will be situated above the market, Barber said.

Last August the supermarket chain opened an 40,000-square-foot underground Alpha Beta in Costa Mesa. The parking lot is also underground, and shoppers have to drive down a ramp to get to it, Barber explained.

Located above the market, on street level, is a brand-new Edwards Cinema complex, Nike Town store and other retailers.

Also last summer Food 4 Less opened a 32,000-square-foot store in San Francisco on the ground level of a building with 14 floors of condominiums above it, Barber said.

The supermarket parking lot is situated on a level above the market and below the housing. Shoppers have to drive up a ramp to get to it, he said.

To carry groceries to and from the store, shoppers ride in an elevator large enough to fit a couple of shopping carts, Barber said.

The company is also developing a stepless escalator that will carry shopping carts at future sites. A ridge on the edge of the cart's wheels locks into a groove in the escalator and the cart is carried along. "You can actually let go of the cart and it won't go anywhere," Barber said.

Compton-based Ralphs Grocery Co. has built some supermarkets that have housing above and parking below, said Senior Vice President Jan Charles Gray. The company has such markets in Hillcrest and La Jolla, near San Diego, and plans to soon build one at an undisclosed South Central L.A. location, he said.

Unconventional locations such as these are "really becoming more popular as the value of land becomes more expensive for retail locations," he said.

These types of locations "are not for the faint-hearted," Gray added. They are much more complicated to construct than the typical supermarket and require an experienced team of engineers and builders.

Fast-food chains, meanwhile, are chomping on alternatives to their traditional free-standing, drive-through outlets.

Costa Mesa-based Burger King plans to open more kiosks, outlets that range in size from 300 to 1,000 square feet and offer either full or reduced menus, said Development Manager David Kautz.

Burger King can't place freestanding outlets too close together or they will cannibalize one another. But the company can successfully place the smaller kiosks between the larger outlets, Kautz said.

Burger King is hooking up with oil companies to open two or three outlets in conjunction with gas stations in the L.A. area during 1994, he said.

One option is for a Burger King kiosk to share a building with a gas station convenience store. Another is for the gas station and convenience store to share a space with a full-sized Burger King that has a drive-through.

The chain is also negotiating to open kiosks in several L.A.-area hospitals, Kautz said, and inside some large, warehouse-type merchandisers.

Burger King officials are also considering opening some double-drive-through locations -- a drive-through window on either side of the building. These outlets would consist of a 900-square-foot building, a walk-up window, and seating outside on a patio, Kautz said.

Irvine-based Taco Bell operates several kiosks at Southland universities, including California State Polytechnic University, California State University Dominguez Hills, California State University Los Angeles, the University of California at Los Angeles and Long Beach City College, said Taco Bell spokeswoman Janis Smith.

Irvine-based El Pollo Loco is also considering opening outlets in some smaller places, and is currently conducting demographic studies to see where this could be feasible, said Real Estate Manager Jim Travis.

A smaller space with high volume can be more profitable because there is less overhead, Travis said.