Rheem Valley's Grocery Outlet Is Still Under Construction. A Nearby Sunday Market Continues

How many grocery stores have occupied that stretch of Moraga Road before the one under construction right now even opens its doors?

If you shop at Rheem Valley Shopping Center, the answer is at least five, going back to 1954. That history matters this September, because the newest addition to that list, a Grocery Outlet at 580 Moraga Road, broke ground in November 2025 with a mid-2026 opening target. Mid-2026 has come and gone. The building is still fenced. And if you live in Del Rey, close enough to Rheem Valley to treat it as your default errand run, you've probably already stopped checking the sign for a date.

The center has changed over time, and that history provides context for the new grocery project.

Five grocery stores across seven decades

According to Lamorinda Weekly's January 2026 retrospective, Rheem Valley didn't get its first grocery store until Clark's Market opened when the center did, in 1954. Over the following decades, that same retail footprint cycled through Petrini's in 1986, then Apple Market, before the space eventually became Home Goods. A separate storefront went from Safeway to TJ Maxx. What is now the Saint Mary's College annex space started out as a Lucky Store. The Rheem Valley Bowl, built in 1960 by Donald L. Rheem, hosted leagues and bumper bowling for nearly 40 years before closing in 1999. The building itself wasn't demolished until 2004, and the lot then sat vacant for another eight years before medium-density housing finally broke ground. That history was the backdrop to the Grocery Outlet's November 2025 groundbreaking.

Lamorinda Weekly's report on the Grocery Outlet groundbreaking described the November 2025 ceremony, attended by Moraga's mayor and the store's chairman of the board. The chairman, who lives in Lafayette, joked that he'd soon only have to drive four miles to shop at one of his own stores. The property owner called it a catalyst for the rest of the center. Both were describing the start of construction, not a finished result.

The three stages of construction

In its groundbreaking report, Lamorinda Weekly outlined a three-part construction plan: underground work first, meaning site prep, utilities, and foundation, then construction of the 17,404-square-foot building itself, and finally the interior work, shelving, registers, the details that turn a shell into a store. As of Lamorinda Weekly's June 2026 report, the mid-2026 opening target announced at the groundbreaking was already behind schedule, based on the visible state of construction at the site. A spokesperson for the property owner acknowledged crews were pushing to catch up, but no revised completion date was given.

No outlet covering Moraga has reported a revised opening since. If you've been driving past the fencing all summer and wondering whether you missed an announcement, you didn't. The store simply isn't open yet, and nobody local has said when it will be.

What's already open while you wait

The useful thing to remember is that Rheem Valley was never a ghost town waiting on one tenant. While the grocery build sits behind schedule, the rest of the center has kept functioning, and some of it has kept changing on its own:

• TJ Maxx, CVS, Dollar Tree, and Home Goods remain the anchor stores for daily needs
• The space that opened as New Delhi Bistro in 2012 has since cycled through a vegetarian concept called Bagaan and, more recently, a Cal-Mex restaurant called Casa Turing
• F45 Training opened in a space that used to house Mycra Pac
• Moraga Jewelers relocated within the center to make room for the Grocery Outlet construction, rather than closing

The center's other stores remain open while construction continues, so a Tuesday errand run through Rheem Valley can still include the shops listed above.

The nearby Sunday market

The Moraga Farmers' Market is a few minutes away, at the corner of Moraga Way and Moraga Road. It runs every Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., with more than 40 local farmers and food vendors.

Fall is when the market's calendar gets more specific. Its Halloween Harvest Festival and costume parade are annual fixtures, alongside a Grape Escape event earlier in the year and a Cherry Festival and Watermelon Festival in summer. For Del Rey residents who make the trip, this can be a regular outing, the kind of Sunday morning that happens whether or not a new sign has gone up on Moraga Road.

The Grocery Outlet remains under construction. When the new store opens, it will add a sixth name to a list that already includes Clark's Market, Petrini's, Apple Market, Safeway, and the Lucky Store, giving the center another grocery option alongside its other businesses.

The latest Grocery Outlet update

No revised opening date has been reported. For residents who pass the construction site, the timing remains uncertain.

That's the current update if you live within walking distance of Del Rey Elementary and drive past that fencing every week wondering the same thing your neighbors are wondering.

If there's a next update on the Grocery Outlet's timeline, or on whatever comes next for Rheem Valley, Lamorinda Weekly is worth checking for local coverage. Bookmark it if you want to know before the sign changes.

For more on what's actually changing across Lamorinda, from shopping centers to school-adjacent neighborhoods, Alexis Thompson keeps a running local read on the towns she's worked in since 2007. If you're curious what your own Del Rey home might be worth in today's market, her free home valuation tool is a good place to start, no waiting on construction required.