East Las Vegas supermarket to reopen nearly 3 years after collapse
Nearly three years after a windstorm caused heavy damage, La Bonita No. 4 supermarket at Eastern Avenue and Desert Inn Road will officially reopen this week, the Las Vegas-based supermarket chain’s general manager said.
The store at 2500 East Desert Inn Road will open its doors Wednesday, Armando Martínez said.
The building’s front canopy partially collapsed Aug. 13, 2021. Four people suffered minor injuries in the collapse, which left a huge pile of wood and debris in the store’s parking lot.
Looking back on that day, Martínez said the plan was always to rebuild as quickly as possible, but several unexpected obstacles with construction caused reopening to be delayed.
“If it were up to us, we would have opened it within a year,” he said, but “many legal things, insurance, came into play, and it took almost a year to simply know what the cause of the closure was.”
After determining the cause, the company needed to work with the mall owner to make repairs and obtain permits from Clark County to repair the damage. La Bonita management took the opportunity to completely remodel the Desert Inn location to include new equipment, bakery display cases, a new dining area and several self-checkout stations.
Construction took about 10 months for a planned reopening in late 2023, but disaster struck again. Problems with the roof discovered in December caused another major construction delay.
Martínez said he and others went to the store to test the lights and air conditioning and noticed that many were not working. That’s when they discovered that the store’s roof had been vandalized — air conditioning units had been stolen, and wires and copper had been cut or stolen.
As of Friday, teams were working hard to stock shelves and train new employees for the grand reopening.
Martínez said the company hired 150 people at a recent job fair and will bring back 50 employees who were working at the location before it closed and were transferred to different locations.
The store is not hiring at this time, but Martínez encourages those interested in working at the supermarket chain to apply when the store officially opens, as positions may arise.
He said that plans have been submitted and approved to open La Bonita No. 8 in 2025. The eighth store will be at East Bonanza Road and North Nellis Boulevard in Sunrise Manor. Construction is expected to begin this year.
Contact Laura Anaya-Morga at lanaya-morga@reviewjournal.com.
