City Hall was packed Tuesday night with residents holding signs, 8.5×11 inch printouts bearing the word MALL with a red strike through it.
For nearly seven hours they held their signs high, shouting at intervals in protest of the $300 million waterfront redevelopment project being negotiated by the city and it chosen developer, CenterCal.
“This could be a long meeting,” Mayor Steve Aspel said at the beginning of the evening. “We’re all going to have [to] have patience tonight.”
At about half an hour past midnight, the City Council voted 4-1 (with Bill Brand dissenting) to take another step forward in the redevelopment process, which was initiated Jul. 30 with the signing of a formal memorandum of understanding between the city and CenterCal. Tuesday’s vote amends that document and contracts CDM Smith, Inc. to embark on an 18-month process of reviewing the project’s environmental impact.
The cost of its study, in the ballpark of $1.9 million, will be borne by CenterCal. The city does not make a financial commitment to the project until the environmental review is complete.
“This is not something that’s happening tomorrow, it’s not something that’s moving at lightspeed,” said District 5 Councilmember Matt Kilroy before voting to move ahead. “As one councilmember put it, it’s moving at the speed of government. It’ll be two years before any legal agreement is signed with CenterCal.”
“There’s no tractors or bulldozers showing up the day after tomorrow,” Aspel added.
Brand countered that “by the time that happens, it will be too late” and thanked the residents who turned out to voice their concerns.
Tuesday night, there was palpable friction between those who believe the project is urgently necessary, and those who are decidedly opposed to the plans CenterCal has for a roughly 15-acre area – 487,000 square feet of retail and entertainment establishments, 200,000 square feet of it brand-new development.
Dozens of people pleaded passionately to “Stop the mall,” and dozens more urged the council to approve a project that could transform the city’s waterfront into the bustling town center it was before it fell prey to natural disaster, negative publicity, and age.
City staff wants to turn the waterfront into an appealing destination for residents and tourists – a place where people will spend time and money.
“It’s safe to say that many residents no longer go to our waterfront, which was once a thriving hub for downtown Redondo Beach,” said harbor, business, and transit director Pete Carmichael. “It really is no longer a destination for residents of our own city.”
Larry Kosmont, the city’s real estate advisor, called the pier a “fixer-upper,” and said there was enormous value in enticing a private firm to pay for infrastructure upgrades.
“It needs private investment and it’s either going to be theirs or ours,” he said.
In coming years, Carmichael said, the city will have to pay for the replacement of an aging parking structure at the pier and will have to continue absorbing a loss of $200,000 annually to operate Seaside Lagoon.
CenterCal has pledged to invest no less than $200 million up front, and the city has agreed to invest $25 million – $7 million from a restricted fund earmarked for storm water, waste, and transport; $18 million in revenue the project is expected to generate.
The developer wants a 10 percent return on its investment; once that is achieved, 25 percent of any additional ground rent revenues will go to the city. But reaching the target, Carmichael acknowledged, is not a guarantee.
“There is a possibility this project never gets a 10 percent return, in which case the city doesn’t get any rent but the city also doesn’t have to pay [for infrastructure upgrades],” he said.
After 30 years, the city will earn a minimum of $1 million in rent, regardless of project performance that year, and after 55 years, rent will be appraised periodically. After 80 years, the city will have to approve all capital investment.
For the first 10 years of the project’s life, the city anticipates earning $40,000 in yearly ground rent.
Consultant Jeff Green, who the city contracted to complete a market feasibility study, talked Tuesday night about the results of his analysis. Green’s study projects total annual sales of $231 million in 2016 – an average of $719 per square foot of retail, restaurant, theater, and market hall uses – and $266 million in 2018.
It estimates that the majority of people who visit the site will be Redondo Beach residents – about half of them well educated and white-collar employed with higher-than-average incomes ($120,828 on average) who are physically active and dine out often. The study forecasts 15 to 20 percent of sales will be to tourists, and that competition from nearby shopping centers will be slim.
Tuesday night, there was fiery debate over whether the project constitutes a mall. Kosmont described the project as a “lifestyle center” because it includes open and recreational space; District 4 Councilmember Steve Sammarco described it as a “mega-mall.”
Brand claimed CenterCal previously presented a very different design, then “did a 180” to turn the project into a mall. He pointed to an above-ground parking structure, estimated to be 45 feet high, and an amended hotel design as examples of that shift. CenterCal chief executive officer Fred Bruning responded that subterranean parking costs four times as much and that the hotel design changed as per the hotelier’s request.
“I actually should have one of these signs,” Bruning said upon approaching the podium, gesturing to the crowd at his back. “I agree completely that there should be no mall.”
He pointed out that retail shops are “one of the smaller components” of the project.
“Calling our project a mall is like calling the ocean a desert because they both have sand,” he said. Bruning added that in light of the protests voiced by unionized workers earlier that evening, the city clearly needs money to upgrade its infrastructure and pay its employees.
Public comment was impassioned; one speaker even cried.
Some desperately want Redondo to retain its sleepy charm.
“People who live, work, and attend school in Redondo don’t want the city to become the next Manhattan Beach (concrete jungle) or El Segundo (commercial center). Rather, we love Redondo for having kept one foot in the middle class, for embracing the diversity of all the pier patrons who go there for family fun, for preferring a carnival game and a churro to a yoga class and a latte,” Kim Akhavan wrote in an email to the mayor and council.
Others find the plan suspect. Gary Ohst believes CenterCal is not paying enough rent and is concerned the Green study lacks key numbers, such as the quantified value of lost revenue during the project’s construction phase.
“I think it is completely irresponsible for this City Council to charge ahead into an EIR (Environmental Impact Review) when you don’t even have the full set of facts,” he said. “I think it’s a travesty that staff has this half-baked analysis before you tonight.”
Jim Light demanded compromise, spurning a project that blocks “80 percent of views from Harbor Drive” and generates traffic.
“This is a harbor,” Light said. “It’s not a lifestyle center, it’s not a shopping experience. Please don’t let this project suck the Redondo out of Redondo Beach.”
Still others believe the project represents a chance for the Redondo Beach waterfront to recover the visitor numbers it once enjoyed.
“This is not a mall,” said Rob Resnick, the master leaseholder for the recently upgraded Redondo Landing at the pier. “It’s been described as a lifestyle center but I would say it’s more than that. I think this is really an opportunity to create a center for community life in the city of Redondo Beach.”
“We have been waiting years and decades for redevelopment,” wrote Charlie Szymanski in an email to the mayor and council. “I’d like to see redevelopment started. I’d like my kids who are gradeschoolers to enjoy it before they go off to college. I’d like to enjoy it while I still have life in me to enjoy it. Every year that passes is more time that goes by with a decrepit waterfront.”
“I know some people would like Redondo to stay the way it has been, but that’s just not possible,” said Joan Irvine. “We need to move into the 21st century. We can’t afford to be stalled again or we will be here again in 2028 debating the same issue that has been debated for the last decade or more.”
Ultimately, the council voted to move the project ahead, but directed staff to honor Sammarco’s request to bring back a request for proposals from contractors for another feasibility study and fiscal analysis.
Months ago, Sammarco refused to vote in favor of the project until a feasibility study was complete. But Tuesday night, he expressed disappointment over Green’s study, alleging that because Jeff Green Partners had done studies for Apple – another CenterCal project contains an Apple store – it was not a “truly independent” party. He requested that the city work on finding another contractor to do a second feasibility study and a fiscal analysis, and pick up the tab.
“Without what I was promised… there’s no way I’m going to vote for this,” Sammarco said.
Aspel pointed out that Sammarco should have been more specific from the beginning, as the analysis has already been done and paid for.
Logistics aside, he said, his viewpoint hasn’t changed: while the pier is “not a dump,” its appeal has dropped drastically, and something needs to change.
“I [want] people who [visit] here from other places to go to Redondo,” Aspel said. “I don’t want them shopping in Torrance. I don’t want them shopping in El Segundo. I don’t want your friends to come from Ohio and you take them to Mangiamo’s or whatever in Manhattan Beach… We need people to use our pier, our area, and spend their money here.”
Clarification: Last week, Easy Reader reported that the project will comprise 200,000 square feet. The project is likely to exceed 400,000 square feet; the 200,000 figure refers to new development.
