JERSEY CITY-Martin Luther King Drive Hub was designed to be a retail engine for the redevelopment of a troubled section of this city, but that engine nearly ran out of gas late last summer when the strip shopping center's 50,000-sf supermarket anchor shut its doors for good. Now, city officials have gotten the good news that Xtra, an ethnic specialty food chain, has agreed to take over the space.

Under the terms of the new agreement, CitiMarkets will remain as the primary tenant, with Xtra coming in on a sublease basis. Xtra, owned by businessman Luis Lopez, has additional New Jersey stores in Newark, East Orange and Maplewood.

According to figures made public by the shopping center's owners, the Jersey City EDC and the non-profit Neighborhood Development Corp., CitiMarkets had been paying an estimated $13 per sf for the space. Under the a restructured lease agreement, CitiMarkets' new rent has been reduced to about $9 per sf, and Xtra's sublease will cost approximately $6.50 per sf for the first 10 months.

The Hub, as the shopping center is called, was developed by the joint venture partners with the help of some $14 million in federal assistance. Besides the supermarket, anchor tenants include a Ponderosa Steak House, Blockbuster Video and Fleet Bank.

The anchor signing is the second piece of good news the city received in the last week in its effort to redevelop the Martin Luther King Drive corridor. Late last week, Goldman Sachs agreed to develop a $5 million apartment project combined with a small component of commercial space. City officials hope the G-S project will help stabilize the corridor's residential sector.