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Health & Fitness

What Should Go Here? Pedro Point Shopping Center (Fresh & Easy)

If you shop at the Pedro Point Shopping Center (where Fresh & Easy is), you might have noticed these large orange posters in the vacant space next to Fresh & Easy.

The posters ask you, “What do YOU want here?” and then to suggest your ideas on Spotmojo.

I’m a co-founder of Spotmojo.  Spotmojo’s a website where you can suggest ideas to fill retail (and restaurant) vacancies in your neighborhood.  The idea came to me when I was walking around in my neighborhood in Oakland thinking about all the businesses I wish we had and at the same time fill some of the blighted vacant retail space there.  Then I realized there wasn’t a place to do this and that it seems like pretty useful information for new businesses, especially smaller, independently owned businesses.

We started about a year ago, launched a basic version of the website, found some landlords who agreed to put our posters in their vacant spots, and also got the word out by writing in the Patch.  We started out focusing on East Bay and South Bay, and now we’re branching out.  

Through working in Oakland we were introduced to a broker at Retail West who manages the Pedro Point Shopping Center.  I found the people at Retail West very open-minded, willing to try new things, and most importantly very interested in hearing what the community wants in their neighborhood.  Surprisingly to us, when we first started talking with brokers we found that more than a few of them actually have little interest in what the community wants as long as they can find a tenant with enough saved up to survive most of their lease.  We find this to be a disservice to the community as well as to the owner of the business who’s going to spend his/her life savings to find out the community isn't interested in what they’re selling.

So the idea is, if enough people say what they want on Spotmojo, businesses will know where their customers are (or aren’t).  That helps them decide on a location and it helps the community by getting the things you need closer to you.

So enough with the intro...let’s talk about Pedro Point Shopping Center.

I’ve only visited Pacifica a few times and didn’t know about Pedro Point, but when I first visited I was really impressed that it was filled with unique shops & restaurants.  In addition to Fresh & Easy, there’s High Tide Cafe & Crepery, La Playa Cantina, NorCal Surf Shop, The Point Pizza & Pasta, Fog Zone, Annabe’s, and Bruce Ross’ Salon.  I hope I didn’t leave anyone out.

However, on the other side of Fresh & Easy from all the other shops, there’s one remaining spot.  This spot is right under 1900 square feet and big enough for a restaurant, coffee shop, or a retail store.  One of the brokers thinks a coffee shop like Phillz would be great here.

Just through the posters, we’ve received quite a few suggestions and the top suggestions so far are for a vegan/vegetarian restaurant and then a coffee shop.  But we’re definitely not at a point where there are enough suggestions to convince a business to move in solely based on that, so we want to hear from more of you.

This link takes you to Pedro Point Shopping Center’s page on Spotmojo. http://www.spotmojo.com/openspot/pedro/

You can suggest and vote without logging in, but some businesses may not consider anonymous suggestions.  

You can also text your suggestion into (650) 263-8100.  Just text the type of business or name of the business directly into that number.

I hope we get some interesting suggestions.  Drop me an email if you have any questions: michael [at] spotmojo dot com.

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