Politics & Government

Cedillo Opposes Preserving Superior Market's Architecture

Calling Highland Park a "food desert," the councilmember argues that conservation must take a back seat to "economic development, jobs and access to food."

Arguing that remodeling and redeveloping are not antithetical to preserving a building’s historic architecture, Councilmember Gil Cedillo on Tuesday rejected local preservationists’ demands to maintain the mid-century Googie-style façade of the former Superior Market.

“I have to look for the entire community—and look at what their needs are,” the Eastsider L.A. quoted Cedillo as saying during a City Council Planning and Land Use Management Committee meeting aimed at deciding whether or not to recommend to the full council that the Figueroa Street grocery store preserve its architecture. A vote by the council is expected to be the next and possibly final step in the long-running struggle by preservationists to retain the grocery store’s architectural integrity.

In contrasting the wider community’s “needs” with those expressed by preservationists, Cedillo was referring to “economic development, jobs and access to food,” the Eastsider reported, adding: “At one point, he referred to Highland Park as a ‘food desert.’”

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