By Jorge Casuso
October 21, 2025 -- When Vons opened Santa Monica's largest full-service supermarket Friday, the store topped by 280 new housing units offered a blueprint the City Council will follow, said Mayor Pro Tem Caroline Torosis.
That blueprint and the vision behind it will be presented by the City Council's super-majority and City Manager Oliver Chi at next Tuesday's Council meeting, Torosis said in an address at the grand opening of the supermarket at the corner of Broadway and Lincoln Boulevard.
Called "The Renaissance Agenda," the plan builds on the Council majority’s three strategic pillars, said Torosis, who will assume the post of Mayor in December.
They are "Economic Opportunity and Growth, Clean and Safe Neighborhoods, and Affordable, Livable Housing for All," she said.
"These aren’t abstract goals, they’re the lens through which we’re rebuilding downtown," Torosis said. "And this project brings all three to life."
"This project, the homes above and the market below is the first tangible sign of that work taking shape," Torosis said. "It’s the blueprint for how we move forward: by pairing smart growth with real community benefit, and doing it in a way that everyone can see and touch."
The new Council majority has made an unabashed push for mixed-use development that reverses the previous Council's cautious approach to growth -- once Santa Monica's hot button issue.
In her speech, Torosis extolled the abundant housing agenda decried by the City's slow-growth activists, who have lost leverage under State housing policies and laws that have stripped local jurisdictions of planning decisions.
The Vons development, Torosis said, is "a reminder that progress doesn’t always come with fireworks. Sometimes it looks like good planning, strong partnerships, and the courage to say yes to abundance.
"Abundance means believing there’s enough, enough housing, enough safety, enough compassion, enough opportunity, when we work together to make it so. It’s about rejecting the politics of scarcity and fear and building a city that meets the moment."
The Renaissance Agenda will be unveiled after four new pro-housing Councilmembers were seated last December and immediately took action to make housing developments easier and faster to build.
In their first full meeting, the Council's new 6 to 1 majority quickly voted to allow housing projects proposed in non-residential zones to once again be approved administratively on any size lot.
In the next two full meetings the Council voted to expedite issuing certain building permits and extended the expiration dates on certain development and building permit applications.
The Council also voted for Santa Monica to become one of five California cities that backed SB 79, a successful bill opposed by 131 cities that allows large residential developments to be built near major transit stops with no local input.
More recently, the Council approved density bonuses for housing developers and gave them an opportunity to build affordable units off-site in an effort to jump start construction.
Developed by Related California, the Vons mixed-use project on a 2.5 acre site at 710 Broadway -- which replaced the old Vons supermarket and parking lot -- is between five and eight stories tall.
It includes 99,085 square feet of ground-floor commercial space that will house a new upgraded Vons, 196 market-rate units and 84 affordable units for low- and moderate-income households.
The project also includes 354 parking spaces and 523 bicycle spaces in a two-level subterranean garage, a 30,000-square-foot central courtyard, a commercial gym and restaurant space with outdoor seating.
The new Vons store features Drive Up & Go curbside pickup, home delivery and a new “Walk Up & Go” service designed specifically for pedestrians.
The project was bankrolled with a $375 million construction loan and $175 million in tax-exempt bonds issued by the California Municipal Finance Authority, according to The Real Deal.