Redondo Pursues Tourist Beach Head

0
Redondo Pursues Tourist Beach Head
Have Networks

Fred Bruning has a special fondness for the Redondo Beach waterfront. He remembers what it was like in the 1950s, when the lanky U-shaped pier and small harbor was one of the South Bay’s more popular beachside destinations.

“My dad used to take me fishing on the pier five or six times a summer,” he said. “Some of my earliest and best memories were of having that ocean experience.”

But in recent decades, neglect has literally eroded its appeal: railings and walkways are cracked and faded, wood-sided office buildings are teeming with termites and the concrete parking structure that serves the area is crumbling.

Residents and city officials agree the area needs to be rescued, but to what extent has become a growing point of contention in the community, especially as the potential for further development in the area picks up steam.

Nearly two years ago, the Redondo Beach City Council selected Bruning and his El Segundo development company, CenterCal Properties, to reimagine its aging 35-acre waterfront and pier area.

The result was an estimated $300 million proposal calling for the demolition of nearly 220,000 square feet of existing structures. The waterfront redevelopment would have up to 524,000 square feet of both new and rehabbed retail, restaurant and office space, a movie theater with dinner service and a 120-room boutique hotel.

It would be the largest waterfront redevelopment under construction on the West Coast, but it has run into vocal opposition – resistance that has increased in recent weeks with the prospect of yet another large project in the area.

Electricity provider AES Corp. of Arlington, Va., announced recently that it planned to shut down a nearby power plant in 2020 and, in its place, develop single-family homes and a mixed-use project with a hotel and stores on its more than 50-acre site.

Almost immediately, activist community groups including Building a Better Redondo, South Bay Parkland Conservancy and Redondo Residents for Responsible Revitalization began rallying against both plans. Their chief concerns, said Councilman Bill Brand, center on the two projects’ proposed size, density and, by extension, traffic impact. Together, CenterCal’s waterfront redevelopment and AES’ Harbor Village Initiative could bring about 700,000 square feet of commercial development to the sleepy beach town, plus 600 homes.

“The worry is that these projects are too big, but mostly it’s quality-of-life impacts: traffic, congestion, air quality and open space,” Brand said.

But for all the noise opponents have been making, Brand has often been the lone voice of dissent on the City Council.

Faded glory

More than a century ago, the Redondo Beach waterfront was a center of commerce and tourism. Fed by railroads and a small harbor, it was the first real port in Los Angeles.

It boasted such attractions as a casino, roller coaster and the grand Hotel Redondo, a Victorian-style sister resort to the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. But as more modern ports opened in San Pedro and Long Beach, the area’s popularity started declining. The old hotel, which opened in 1890, was closed and torn down in 1925. Finally, in the late 1980s, the waterfront sustained the one-two-punch of a rough storm and a devastating electrical fire that destroyed much of the pier. Afterwards, some structures were rebuilt, but the area never fully recovered.

Today, Bruning said, few people in the 6.2-square-mile city of 67,000 visit the pier more than a couple of times a year.

“They go once or twice a year to Capt. Kidd’s or Kincaid’s or Quality Seafood, but they go there and then they leave; they don’t spend a lot of time on the waterfront,” he said. “I think the waterfront today has become less relevant to the Redondo Beach community than it was ever in its history.”

The two plans for major development in Redondo Beach have gained the support of Mayor Steve Aspel, who has publicly backed both projects. Aspel said he believes the opposition – particularly against the waterfront development – is coming from a raucous minority of residents.

“The majority of people I talk to are really in favor of the project, but they’re not the kind of people who will write a letter to the editor or come down to City Hall with pitchforks and knives,” he said. “There are probably 30 really vocal people against it.”

While CenterCal has yet to receive a green light for specifics of its waterfront project, it has passed several important milestones. The company has approval from the California Coastal Commission and support from a majority of the City Council. A lengthy environmental review process, expected to take about 18 months, began earlier this summer. Once that’s complete, the council is expected to review and approve more detailed plans, which follow strict guidelines the community voted on and passed in 2010.

‘Act of God’

If all goes as planned, CenterCal could sign a 99-year ground lease by early 2016 with the city for the site. At the same time, the company would make a one-time payment of $23 million to the city; it has also agreed to foot the approximately $50 million bill to rebuild the crumbling parking structure and other infrastructure meant to facilitate the public’s access to the beach, as required by the Coastal Commission.

In exchange, CenterCal would not have to pay rent to the city for 30 years or until it has made a 10 percent return on its investment, whichever comes first.

Critics have complained that such an arrangement is unfair to the city, which, as one of the poorest municipalities in the South Bay, could use the rent income.

But Bruning argues that the $23 million payment and infrastructure costs would be the equivalent of prepaid rent. Without the project, the city would have to find another way to pay its debts and fund infrastructure improvements.

Despite the opposition, the project’s support still seems firm; Mayor Aspel said only an “act of God” could derail the waterfront project now.

AES, meanwhile, is just getting started: The company is working to get enough signatures to put a measure on this spring’s ballot to allow a zoning change for its longtime industrial property. Even if everything goes smoothly, no one expects shovels in the ground before 2020.

Eric Pendergraft, who handles business development for AES in California, said he’s optimistic that, after nearly 15 years wrangling with the city and community members over how best to use the power plant site, the company has finally happened upon a mutually agreeable starting point for development.

“We put a lot of thought and did a lot of research into what had been proposed in the past; there’s been more than a decade of debate about what should be done with our site,” he said. “The plan we came up with attempts to consider all that and strike a reasonable balance between economic development and open space. We designed it to get broad community support, and we’re hopeful that’s what we’ll get when it ultimately goes to a vote.”

No posts to display