Excavation began this month on La Jolla Boulevard for the construction of a new Long’s Drugs, a pharmacy and convenience store that is tentatively scheduled to be completed by next summer.
The building, a 12,000-square-foot structure with a 19,000-square-foot parking garage that has been in the works for about three years, will be accessed through the alley off Midway Street ” a project detail that many La Jolla residents supported, according to Colton Sudberry, president of the project’s managing firm, Sudberry Properties.
“It has had a fair amount of press over the years,” Sudberry said. “It came up at the community hearings and for every nine people who wanted access off the alley, one person didn’t. The whole idea is to reduce the amount of curb cuts on La Jolla Boulevard so it doesn’t impede the traffic.”
Bird Rock’s planned district ordinance (PDO) requires architects to conform to a strict building code that states access for all commercial properties must be through the alley, according to Sudberry.
The project, which was approved unanimously about a year and a half ago by the La Jolla Community Planning Association and was given a discretionary permit by the city’s hearings officer shortly after, is being funded and constructed by Long’s corporate offices, Sudberry said.
Roadblocks and construction diversions are not expected, according to Marco Sessa, Sudberry’s project assistant, who also added the new building was designed with suggestions from the city council and the community in mind.
“We wanted to do something classy with the architecture,” Sessa said. “There’s extensive use of glass and arches so it doesn’t look like a traditional market. We always knew that the area warranted a higher level of design.”
Constructing commercial property entrances off alleys has become a common practice in the area and is more practical in terms of protecting pedestrians and enhancing the street landscape, Sessa said.
“We are seeing a trend in a lot of development where alleys are becoming favored and cars are being kept out of sight,” he said.
The firm thinks the project will fit perfectly with the city’s ongoing traffic-calming project along La Jolla Boulevard, which includes a series of traffic circles. A project to install three new traffic circles at Forward Street, Bird Rock Avenue and Camino de la Costa, as well as several medians and sewer and street repairs, broke ground June 20 and is expected to be completed in November 2008, according to a press release from City Council President and District 1 Councilman Scott Peters.
The firm designed the parking structure to accommodate close to double the city’s two parking spaces per 1,000 square feet of building space requirement, according to Sudberry.
Long’s Drugs, a chain of more than 500 stores along the West Coast and in Hawaii, also has strict rules concerning delivery and operation hours, as well as liquor stocks and sales, Sudberry and Sessa said.
Both agreed the project would be beneficial to the community.
“We spent nine months to a year working with [city] council, going through and incorporating all the things they wanted in the project,” Sessa said. “The building is done in a way that it will complement the street.”
For more information, visit www.longs.com.