Gigante Signs Leases for First OC Markets
By CHRIS CZIBORR
Mexico’s Grupo Gigante SA de CV last week signed leases for its first two Orange County supermarkets and is looking to open up to five more OC stores, the head of its Santa Ana-based U.S. unit said.
“We’ve already signed leases for the stores in Anaheim and Stanton,” said Justo Frias, president of Gigante USA Inc. “Everything’s proceeding very well. We’re going to go forward with it.”
The two leases are for existing buildings Gigante plans to renovate, pending final OK from the cities, Frias said.
Plans for other stores call for a second location in Anaheim, two in Santa Ana, one in Garden Grove and another in an as-yet un-specified spot, Frias said.
“Two of those stores will be built from the ground up and three will be renovated,” he said. “The timelines for the five stores will depend on municipal planning and other factors.”
Gigante hasn’t yet signed leases for any of the other planned stores, he said. Frias declined to provide details about the stores set for the Anaheim and Stanton leases.
The two cities have sizable Hispanic populations: Nearly half of Anaheim’s 328,000 people and Stanton’s 37,000 are Hispanic, according to the latest Census figures.
Gigante, Mexico’s largest supermarket operator, has been working on securing OC sites for about a year. The company already has stores in Arleta, Pico Rivera and Covina, and is building two stores in South-Central Los Angeles, near Compton.
Gigante’s chief competition in OC will come from established stores such as Fullerton-based The La Rioja Ranch Market, which has stores in Anaheim, Santa Ana, Fullerton and Buena Park. Other likely rivals will include Santa Ana-based Northgate Market, Kroger Co.’s Food4Less and the Hispanic-owned Big Saver Foods in Santa Ana.
Gigante hopes to open more than 20 U.S. stores to tap into the country’s fast-growing Hispanic population. Gigante USA has 400 Southern California employees, including 20 at its Santa Ana headquarters.
