Por Ken Williams | Editor

TargetExpress — a mini version of a Target store — is on schedule to open on Wednesday, Oct. 7.

The opening date was confirmed by Erika Winkels, manager of public relations for the Minneapolis-based Target Corp.

But details about plans for the grand opening are still being finalized, Winkels said.

The TargetExpress has generated mixed emotions among South Park residents, dividing the community between those who support the retail business locating in the vintage 1960s Safeway building and those who oppose “Corporate America” intruding upon “Main Street” mom-and-pop stores.

Target officials heeded calls from South Park residents to preserve the exterior of the historical building and not add a Starbucks inside the store so a local coffee shop located in the parking lot wouldn’t be affected.

City officials approved the project this year after a series of community meetings, culminating with a gathering sponsored by the Greater Golden Hill Planning Committee on June 22 at Casa del Prado in Balboa Park. San Diego Uptown News had the story [read it at bit.ly/1SJSO3H].

TargetExpress is a new type of store for Target, described as a “small format store” with a “quick-trip focus,” Laurie Jones, senior development manager for Target, told the audience in June. She stressed the difference between the SuperTarget store in Mission Valley, which covers a whopping 199,000 square feet, to a TargetExpress, typically sized from 10,000 to 20,000 square feet.

The TargetExpress store in South Park will occupy the 18,500-square-feet building that last housed Gala Foods. The mid-century grocery store was originally built by Safeway in its “Marina style” design, one of three prototypes the supermarket chain embraced when it went on a massive expansion program in the 1960s. The “Marina style” was so-named because it was the prototype built on Marina Boulevard in San Francisco and features a giant arch beam as a trademark image.

Target is not altering the exterior and preserving the “Marina style” look. The Gala Foods signage across the front of the store has been emulated by the TargetExpress signage: the famous bulls-eye image plus the word “express.”

Uptown News will be covering the opening of the TargetExpress in a future edition.

—Ken Williams es editor de Uptown News y Mission Valley News y puede ser contactado en [email protected] o al 619-961-1952. Síguelo en Twitter en KenSanDiego, cuenta de Instagram en KenSD o Facebook en KenWilliamsSanDiego.