The long-awaited makeover of West LA's old Vons-anchored strip mall is finally getting underway with the leveling of an entire block of Santa Monica Boulevard between Barrington and Barry avenues. (Yes, really, even though not much was going on besides a lonely crane when we snapped this yesterday.) For years, we watched curiously as a small, dreary-looking Vons market in the rear of a sea of parking served as a blight on otherwise prime Westside retail real estate. So what's owner Safeway going to build as a replacement?

This brand spanking Pavilions supermarket. Among other improvements, the project places the parking in the back and on the roof. Besides Vons, other long-time uses in the strip mall over the years included a Hallmark card shop, laundromat, discount electronics store, Swiss bakery, and a recycling center that operated in the parking lot during part of the week. The new Pavilions is slated to open next year, helping to fill in the grocery gap that erupted locally when Safeway closed the Pavilions at the Landmark II office tower in Brentwood a little over a year ago.