DAVIS, Calif. -- July 7, 2008 -- The landlord of the Westlake Plaza Shopping Center said today he has asked to postpone a planned July 15 City Council vote on rezoning most of a vacant grocery store to office space and other uses.

In a telephone interview, real estate agent Jim Barcewski told a representative of Davis Advocates for Neighborhood Groceries (DANG) that he was pulling the item because he is negotiating with two different groups who are interested in operating a grocery store in the shopping center. In both cases, he said, the proposal would be to operate a 6,000 square-foot operation that he described as a "high-end, boutique grocery store."

"I am convinced I cannot go before the City Council without a quality grocery store tenant in hand," he said. "It cannot be a convenience store. It will be a full-service grocery store."

Previously, Barcewski, representing the ownership group that owns the shopping center, had proposed a 3,000 square-foot store and converting the rest of the vacant 22,000 square-foot store to other uses, such as offices or retail. At public meetings in West Davis, nearly all residents opposed the idea.

When the 3,000 square-foot store rezoning went before the Davis Planning Commision, a neighborhood group formed to urge that the proposal be rejected. The Planning Commission voted 4-3 on Jan. 16 to deny the proposed zoning change. When the Westlake Plaza landlords indicated they would appeal the vote to the full City Council, the DANG citizen group began a grass-roots effort to gather signatures on a petition urging the City Council to also oppose the zoning change. As of July 1, DANG volunteers have collected more than 900 signatures of Davis residents.

The current plan, Barcewski said, is to secure a tenant for 6,000 square-feet of space. He also said the landlords would hire a design firm that specializes in grocery store design to create a plan for the new store, and then present the new proposal to the city sometime in September.

City Planning Director Katherine Hess on June 27 confirmed that the City Council would not take up the Westlake Plaza zoning change appeal in July at the request of the shopping center owners.

Thousands of residents who live west of Highway 113 have been without convenient access to food and other staples since 2006 when the "Food Fair" market closed its doors. The out-of-town owners of the shopping center, Barcewski and Farrokh Hosseinyoun, claim that the center can no longer support a supermarket, despite the fact that markets have operated at the location for many years. The center owners are seeking a city zoning change that would allow them to convert most of the 22,000 square-foot supermarket to office space or other uses.

The Westlake Plaza shopping center, located at the intersection of Lake Boulevard and Arlington Boulevard in West Davis, was built in the 1980s and comprises about 70,000 square-feet of retail and office space. The center includes restaurants, a laundrymat, dry cleaners, video store, coffee and bakery shop and other businesses. Major neighborhoods that are located near the shopping center include Stonegate, Village Homes, Aspen and Westwood. Many residents of Winters and West Plainfield also partronize the center.

A group of local residents, not satisfied that all options have been explored to locate another market in the center, has formed a non-profit orgainzation, Davis Advocates for Neighborhood Groceries, and has gathered more than 900 signatures as of July 1 on petitions urging the City Council to uphold the decision of the city's Planning Commission to deny the zoning change.