Super King Markets (will open their fourth location in Claremont at 436 Auto Center Drive, just west of Indian Hill next to Claremont Toyota. The Claremont location will be added to their locations in Anaheim, Los Angeles, and Altadena. Super King opened 10 years ago in Anaheim, and their mission is ”to serve the food needs of the people of metropolitan Southern California.”

For more information about the grand opening, go to http://www.skclaremont.com/, and for information about jobs, go to http://www.superkingmarkets.com/careers.

Super King Claremont Under Construction

Norms (I don’t know why they don’t use an apostrophe, but they don’t) opened Aug 23 in Claremont at the very busy intersection of Interstate 10 and Indian Hill. The restaurant has excellent freeway visibility with an approximately 50 foot “googie saw tooth” sign (in the middle of the picture above). For more about Norms “googie” architecture, check out their website at http://normsrestaurants.com/googie.html.

I stopped by there on a Saturday morning and there was quite a crowd inside and waiting for a table outside. I heard one patron say the wait was 30 minutes.

Norms Restaurant was started in 1949 by Norm Roybark near Hollywood & Vine in Hollywood. Today there are 18 locations all in Southern California. As their slogan says, “We never close.” The chain is still owned by the Roybark family.

Norms Under Construction

The “Coming Soon” sign has been replaced by a “Now Open” banner on the Marshalls at 2340 E Foothill Boulevard in La Verne, at the southeast corner of White Avenue. Marshalls was formerly located across the street behind the new Panera Bread. Marshalls has been a part of La Verne since 1998.

The Marshalls and eventually new Staples (on the right in the picture) are in the location formerly occupied by Vons, which moved down the street to the redeveloped site of the former K-Mart just east of Wheeler and Foothill. When Vons left, the vacancy in the shop space in the center seemed to increase, even though a recently redeveloped Target is located in the same parking lot to the east.

No word yet on the opening date of the Staples.

Frozen Ropes Glendora opened October 17 at 2244 E Route 66 in the former NAPA Auto Parts store that has been vacant for many years. The property is owned by the Glendora Redevelopment Agency, and the plan is to someday build a Class A office building on the property similar to the ones just west of the property.

Frozen Ropes (www.FrozenRopes.com) is a national franchise. The Glendora location offers batting cages, classes on hitting, fielding, pitching, strength and conditioning, and clothing. The facility has nine hitting/pitching tunnels according to their Facebook page  (http://www.facebook.com/FrozenRopesGlendora). Good luck!

The OfficeMax store at 826 West Arrow Highway in San Dimas closed this past Saturday, September 24th, 2011. I asked a couple of different employees why the store was closing, and I got two different answers. One said the lease was up, and the other said the rent was getting too high. Both answers could be true.

The big box office supply market is currently dominated by three chains: OfficeMax, Staples, and Office Depot. It is easy for customers to see them all as commodities, similar to the way they view grocery stores. A customer probably isn’t going to drive past one of these competitors and go out of their way to go to another one. So, location helps to drive market share. This appears to be a cost cutting move on the part of OfficeMax, whose shares have steadily declined this past year from a high of $18.74 on December 6, 2010 to a closing price of $5.33 yesterday. It doesn’t help that Staples is opening a new location just a couple miles east in La Verne at Foothill and Emerald/White. Staples dominates the market with a market cap of nearly $9.9 billion, while OfficeMax is about $452 million and Office Depot is about $609 million.

It could also be that the owner (Kimco) already has a new tenant to put into the spot at a higher rate. We’ll see.

The shell of the Ulta Beauty cosmetics store adjacent to Kohls is complete and workers are building out the interior. Ulta is now accepting applications on their website (www.Ulta.com) for employment at their latest location in Glendora at 1229 S Lone Hill.

Ulta describes themselves on their website:

We were founded in 1990 as a discount beauty retailer at a time when prestige, mass and salon products were sold through distinct channels—department stores for prestige products, drug stores and mass merchandisers for mass products, and salons and authorized retail outlets for professional hair care products. After extensive research, we recognized an opportunity to better satisfy how a woman wanted to shop for beauty products, which led to what we believe to be our unique combination of beauty superstore and specialty store attributes. We believe our strategy provides us with the competitive advantages that have contributed to our strong financial performance.

Today, ULTA is the largest beauty retailer that provides one-stop shopping for prestige, mass and salon products and salon services in the United States. We focus on providing
affordable indulgence to our customers by combining the product breadth, value and convenience of a beauty superstore with the distinctive environment and experience of a specialty retailer.

The new Glendora store joins their other nearby locations in Chino, Upland and Pasadena.

Under Construction

The new Applebee’s on North Citrus Avenue just south of Alosta is set to open on or about August 8, 2011. As the sign indicates, they are now taking applications. Call the number for more information.

Here is a reprint of an article in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune by Cynthia Kurtz, President & CEO of San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership

SGV hospitals ranked among best in L.A. region

San Gabriel Valley Tribune

By: Cynthia Kurtz

No one wants to get sick but when you do need medical care, you want to make sure you are getting the best.  Luckily here in the San Gabriel Valley, we are in “good hands”.  A March 2011 US News and World Report survey of hospitals in major metropolitan regions reported that seven San Gabriel Valley Hospitals are among the best in the Los Angeles Metropolitan region.

The honors went to City of Hope in Duarte, Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena; Garfield Medical Center in Monterey Park, Presbyterian Inter-community Hospital in Whittier, Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona, Methodist Hospital of Southern California in Arcadia, and San Gabriel Valley Medical Center in San Gabriel.

The survey looked at hospitals that were already known to be among the best and that also had a wide breadth of expertise.  None of these SGV medical facilities were lacking in recognition and awards even before the survey.  Just in the last few months Huntington Memorial also received the Magnet Recognition Award for “Excellence in Nursing” from the American Nurses Credentialing Center;  Methodist Hospital President and CEO, Dennis Lee became a fellow of the American College of Healthcare; San Gabriel Valley Medical Center was recognized by Avatar International with the Exemplary Service Award for improvement in patient service and Presbyterian Inter community received the 2011 CIO Award for utilizing innovative technology to advanced their business systems.

Hospitals aren’t just about healthcare.  They are also a huge economic driver. Medical uses, researchers even medical production companies cluster together and support each other.  Wherever you find a hospital you will find many related business usually within a few miles of the hospital.

Healthcare is one of the few sectors in the San Gabriel Valley that grew jobs even during the recession.  Because many research hospitals are closely associated with private education it is difficult to separate jobs in these two sectors.  Even without being able to separate the jobs into precisely one or the other sector, we can see the strong influence of healthcare as a job generator. In 2000 healthcare and private education accounted for about 85,000 jobs in the Valley.  By 2008 that number had grown to 97,000.  Then as almost every other sector started to shed job, these sectors continued to grow, at a slower pace but still they grew to an estimated 101,000 jobs in 2010.

These are good paying jobs too averaging salaries around $ $44,200 plus benefits.

Congratulations to the hospitals for the well deserved recognition. Thank you for taking care of us and thank you for all the jobs you create.

Update on last weeks best Chinese restaurants list:  The Blue Ocean had a fire and is closed for repairs.  Dumplings out grew their space in El Monte and has moved to 500 N. Atlantic in Rosemead…I tried these dumplings the day before they moved from the El Monte site. Trust me it is worth tracking down at the new location.

Thanks to everyone who sent me their San Gabriel Valley favorite restaurant. Keep them coming and we’ll print the list here soon.  Let’s support our local restauranteurs this summer.

Worley Parsons Office at Huntington & Myrtle

Well, after all the dismal job loss reports I have posted over the last year, I am happy to report an actual job expansion here in our very own backyard. WorleyParsons, a Fortune 500 engineering and construction management company, will expand about 100 jobs within the city.

Currently, WorleyParsons has an office at the northwest corner of Myrtle and Huntington Drive and will lease about 24,600 square feet of space at 111 W. Lemon in the heart of Old Town. This will certainly give a shot in the arm to all the retail spaces along Myrtle Avenue with all those employees just a block away.

New Location for 100 Employees at 111 W Lemon

Now, if we can just get In-N-Out to do their deal with Home Depot so all those employees will have another lunch choice!

Chipotle is now open in the La Verne Courtyard at the southwest corner of Foothill Boulevard and White Avenue/Fruit Street, directly across the street from the ongoing construction of the new Staples and Marshalls. The center is anchored by Office Depot and Orchard Supply Hardware as well as some shop space. Chipotle is right next door to Blockbuster. I was there during lunch and there was a vigorous lunch crowd.