Third Ocean Pacific Center in metro area set to rehab dilapidated strip mall at Peoria and Mississippi

AURORA | The sprawling shopping center at the northeast corner of East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street has seen better days.

Ever since Albertson’s closed a struggling grocery store there in 2006, the shopping center has fallen into disrepair, seeing other retailers, including a Rite-Aid drug store, close up shop, too.

Hanh organizes fresh produce, Dec. 31 at the Pacific Ocean Marketplace in Broomfiled, Colo. Trong Lam, the company’s owner and founder, will be opening an Aurora location at East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street that will include 16 other retail spaces that he will rent to other businesses like restaurants, a massage parlor and an accounting office. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

Construction workers help build Aurora’s new Pacific Ocean Marketplace, Dec. 31 near East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Stree. Trong Lam, the company’s owner and founder, will be opening an Aurora location that will include 16 other retail spaces that he will rent to other businesses like restaurants, a massage parlor and an accounting office. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

Pacific Ocean Marketplace offers a wide variety of goods for sale, Dec. 31 in Broomfield, Colo. Trong Lam, the company’s owner and founder, will be opening an Aurora location at East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street that will include 16 other retail spaces that he will rent to other businesses like restaurants, a massage parlor and an accounting office. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

Pacific Ocean Marketplace offers a wide variety of goods for sale, Dec. 31 in Broomfield, Colo. Trong Lam, the company’s owner and founder, will be opening an Aurora location at East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street that will include 16 other retail spaces that he will rent to other businesses like restaurants, a massage parlor and an accounting office. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

Andrew Midwood enjoys shopping at Pacifc Ocean Marketplace for the low grocery prices, Dec. 31 in Broomfield, Colo. Trong Lam, the company’s owner and founder, will be opening an Aurora location at East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street that will include 16 other retail spaces that he will rent to other businesses like restaurants, a massage parlor and an accounting office. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

Pacific Ocean Marketplace offers a wide variety of goods for sale, Dec. 31 in Broomfield, Colo. Trong Lam, the company’s owner and founder, will be opening an Aurora location at East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street that will include 16 other retail spaces that he will rent to other businesses like restaurants, a massage parlor and an accounting office. (Marla R. Keown/Aurora Sentinel)

But this spring, officials say the once-thriving shopping center at one of the city’s busier intersections will be bustling again.

Pacific Ocean Marketplace is set to open a 40,000 square-foot grocery in March or April.

Trong Lam, the company’s owner and founder, said that in addition to the Asian grocery store and market, the new Aurora location will include 16 other retail spaces that he will rent to other business. Those businesses are expected to include several restaurants, a massage parlor and an accounting office, he said.

According to city documents, the $9 million project calls for renovating both the former Albertson’s and Rite-Aid locations.

The city’s planning department called the project “transformative” last year when asking city council to approve a tax-incentive deal to lure the project to Aurora. That deal, which council later approved, could total as much as $1.3 million in sales and use tax refunds over the next decade.

Lam opened the first Pacific Ocean Marketplace in Denver in 1989. That location on West Alameda Avenue near South Zuni Street proved successful so Lam opened a second location in 2005, this time on West 120th Avenue in Broomfield.

When the Aurora store opens in the spring, Lam said it will be about 40 percent larger than the other stores. The Aurora location will cater to Asian shoppers, he said, particularly Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Thai customers. Aurora is a good fit for a few reasons, Lam said.

For one, both of the current Pacific Ocean Marketplace locations are on the west side of the metro area. Opening the store at East Mississippi Avenue and South Peoria Street gives the company a presence on the east side of the region.

And, Lam said, Aurora is the kind of diverse city where an Asian marketplace can thrive.

According to the 2010 Census, Aurora is home to more than 16,000 people who identify as Asian. The largest single segment of that population is the city’s Korean population, which stood at 3,459, according to the Census. The city is also home to more than 1,700 Chinese residents, almost 2,000 Filipino residents and more than 2,747 Vietnamese.

And Aurora’s Asian population has grown steadily over the past decades. According to the 2000 Census, Aurora was home to just more than 12,000 Asians.

The city is also a center of the state’s Asian population, with more than 10 percent of Colorado’s 139,000 residents living in Aurora.

“We think thats just a good spot for us to expand,” he said.

Lam had hoped last year to have the shop up and running by summer 2013, but he said the project has taken longer than expected.

When it does open next spring, Lam said the store itself will have between 45 and 55 employees. The other tenants who rent space will likely employ another 60 or so, he said.

Aurora City Councilwoman Marsha Berzins, whose ward includes the shopping center, said Pacific Ocean Marketplace will be a welcome addition to an area that has fallen on hard times.

After Albertson’s left and the area started to decay, Berzins said there were homeless people sleeping there and the whole shopping center became rundown.

“That building has sat empty for so long, we’re happy to have somebody going in,” she said.