Pustilnikov agrees to 25 park acres at AES
Redondo Beach is applying for grants to buy 15 acres — shaded in blue — of the 51-acre AES site, with designs to obtain 10 more acres with help from partners. Easy Reader illustration/Google Maps/City of Redondo Beach files
Developer Leo Pustilnikov has agreed to work with the City of Redondo Beach in its plan to acquire major portions of Redondo’s AES power plant land, pledging to offer up about half of the 51 acre site for the city to develop a regional park. For its part, the City has applied for $30 million in state funding to purchase 15 of the 25 available land acres. The remaining 10 acres would be purchased with state and local funds.
The Redondo Beach City Council unanimously approved a plan to apply for Cultural, Community and Natural Resources Grant funds — which were made available as part of a sweeping $4 billion bond approved by California voters in 2018 — at its Tuesday, Feb. 12 meeting. The Proposition 68 grant includes language written in by Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi and his predecessor David Hadley, to convert and repurpose fossil-fuel power plants.
However, the city is also preparing for possibilities that the full $30 million it is targeting may not be allocated to the project by setting up partnerships with Pustilnikov’s New Century Power LLC, the California Coastal Conservancy and Los Angeles County government leadership.
“We’re at an opportunity where everyone is aligned and the timing is great,” Mayor Bill Brand said. “This pot is not make or break; there are a lot of other opportunities, and this will be a piece of what is happening.”
The City has been preparing to acquire this property since well before Pustilnikov came on the scene, since at least November 2017 when it announced plans to establish a tax district to finance purchasing the plant.
Pustilnikov’s interest was identified nearly a year later, in October 2018, when he was revealed to have exclusive negotiations rights with AES. At the time, he had closed on two parcels of land — a complete purchase of the land, to date, has not finished. Pustilnikov has maintained since then that parkland would a key portion of the development.
“I’ve been saying half of it would be open space since the day I got involved,” Pustilnikov said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “That open space will be the nexus of a regional park system that connects effectively 100 acres of parks.” His pledge was confirmed in his letter supporting the grant application, offering to sell 25 acres for $2 million per acre, for a $50 million total.
He envisions that park network to include the AES parkland, existing neighboring parks, green belts, bike paths and utility rights-of-way he believes will be publicly accessible sooner than later.
“The right-of-way is no longer functional, and the power lines — which were once assets for utilities — have turned out to be a liability from an accounting perspective,” Pustilnikov said, referring to recent troubles California utilities have faced over wildfires.
A federal court brief filed earlier this week indicated that Pacific Gas and Electric has potentially caused 18 wildfires since 2017, and Southern California Edison — which owns the right-of-way connected to the AES property and stretching down 190th Street — is being investigated by the California Public Utilities Commission for its possible role in causing the Woolsey Fire.
“Now that land can be an asset to the community in a different way…between Dominguez Park, the right of way and AES, that’s already 70 acres of potential open space,” Pustilnikov said.
The entirety of the 51-acre AES site is valued between $190 million and $175 million. At the city’s purchasing price of $2 million per acre, Pustilnikov says he may lose more than $1.5 million per acre on the sale — which he’s willing to eat, hoping to make the money back on the development.
“I’m focused on the park and the open space, and I want to show that to the community,” Pustilnikov said. “Some people say ‘trust me, give me what I want.’ I’m saying, here’s what I’ve promised. When I build something, it’ll be nice.”
Plans for the development have not yet been revealed. Preliminary park plans submitted as part of the grant application include neither the historical building at 1100 N. Harbor Drive, nor most of the eastern half of the site. Those plans also indicate that the Smith+Gill architecture firm is attached to the project; Smith+Gill developed a master plan for Chicago’s 24.5 acre Millennium Park.
But as Brand noted, any development-driven rezoning of the land — which is currently zoned for power generation and parkland — will need to go through a public vote per the City Charter.
“I’ve had people say, do whatever you want with it. I’ve had other people say, leave the plant where it is,” Brand said. “You’ve got bookends on both sides…but it’ll ultimately be up to the community.”