Fresh & Easy, a British-owned grocery store, will open one of its larger California markets later this year in the Rose Pavilion shopping center near the intersection of Rosewood Drive and Santa Rita Road.

The 15,585-square-foot store will replace Express Fitness, which will be relocated within the Rose Pavilion, according to the shopping center's new owners, Benjamin Stoller and the Centro Properties Group.

By choosing the Rose Pavilion site, Fresh & Easy dashed the hopes of some city officials who had been courting the grocer to consider building its new store in the nearly empty Vintage Hills shopping center or as part of a revised plan for a retail center at Stanley Boulevard and Bernal Avenue. That vacant acreage, across from McDonald's, is where Regency, the developer, had sought approval to build a second Home Depot in Pleasanton. The City Council, after initially saying yes, later reversed its vote by not agreeing to the required second reading of an ordinance that would have allowed Regency to proceed.

The new Fresh & Easy, which won a conditional use permit from the Planning Commission to open its first Pleasanton grocery, will be open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Although it will attract far more customers each day than Express Fitness, planners and traffic analysts said the quick in-and-out momentum of grocery shoppers should pose no problems in terms of parking or on nearby streets and intersections.

"The analysis indicated that grocery shoppers spend less time in the grocery store than those who are in the fitness facility," said Staff Planner Jenny Soo.

Soo said planners also took into consideration assurances by Alexander Eagle of Centro Properties that Express Fitness would be relocated to another tenant space in the Rose Pavilion. Exactly where hasn't been decided although it was noted that the two tenant properties in the Express Fitness building are empty and that at least two other furniture stores in the shopping center have either left or plan to go.

Fresh & Easy, which has generated heavy shopper traffic in Arizona, Nevada and other areas of California, is expected to add to the retail spurt at Rose Pavilion, where Golfsmith, a nationally known golf and tennis retailer, opened its new 28,500 square foot Pleasanton superstore two weeks ago. Golfsmith and Fresh & Easy will be just 50 yards apart and will share parking spaces.