[dropcap size=big]S[/dropcap]hock and anger has spread across Santa Ana as news emerged that Northgate Gonzalez Supermarket — an Anaheim-based chain that essentially created the Latino supermarket business in the United States — wants to transform its downtown location on 409 E. Fourth Street into a mixed-use development.
In a flyer posted online by Northgate and its development partner, Red Oak Investments, the company announced that it would transform its Fourth Street spot into “a new mixed‐use residential development featuring high quality residences and public‐serving commercial areas, including a possible restaurant and fresh, urban market.”
The market would be about 3,000 square feet — a fifth of its current size.
On a Facebook post by the nonprofit Santa Ana Building Healthy Communities yesterday, residents expressed bewilderment that Northgate — which has six locations in Santa Ana alone, out of 40 total — would betray the very working-class community that made them by swapping an essential neighborhood market for two multi-story complexes complete with a pool and courtyards.
But what no one mentioned is that the location slated for destruction is a particularly important one in the Northgate narrative, a legacy they seem willing to toss in the name of development.