Three Shore Up Redondo Plans

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Three Shore Up Redondo Plans
Redondo Beach Pier

The competition to redevelop the aging Redondo Beach pier has been whittled down to three regional real estate companies, including the builder of the Terranea Resort.

The city wants to reconstruct 15 acres of its pier with nearly 450,000 square feet of new restaurants, shops and entertainment offerings – what would amount to the county’s largest waterfront development in decades. The idea is to make the pier competitive with neighboring waterfronts, such as Manhattan Beach’s.

“The harbor has been underutilized for a number of years and hasn’t been up to its potential,” said Redondo Beach Councilman Matthew Kilroy. “We are getting investment back into the harbor and have a vision to bring it back to where it could be.”

Seven companies originally pitched the city. But in a public hearing last week, the council heard presentations from three remaining developers, which are being asked to bankroll their projects with as much as $100 million in private financing.

West L.A.’s Lowe Enterprises Inc., which developed Terranea, the Palos Verdes Peninsula resort; CenterCal Properties LLC in El Segundo; and Pacifica Cos. LLC in San Diego are the only companies still in the running for the lucrative project.

Broadly speaking, all three developers seek to turn the beachfront, stretching from the pier to Portofino Way, into a pedestrian-friendly shopping and dining attraction with open space, hotels and accessible waterfront.

The various plans include everything from a new boat ramp, a pedestrian bridge that stretches above an adjacent boat marina, a cooking school that serves the public, movie theaters, a bowling alley and an upscale brewery.

Seven developers, including West L.A.’s CalCoast Development; Beverly Hills’ Legado Cos.; downtown L.A.’s Rising Realty Partners and Cleveland’s Forest City Enterprises Inc., originally presented plans to the city. But CalCoast and Forest City dropped out over the summer due to personnel and financing issues, while Legado and Rising Realty were not asked to move forward by the council in July.

Santa Monica Place developer Macerich Co. and Grove creator Caruso Affiliated – two developers desired by city officials – did not participate.

The council intends to name its preferred developer by the end of next month.

Competing plans

The U-shaped Redondo Beach pier was constructed in the 1920s and hasn’t been significantly updated in decades, though part was reconstructed after storm damage and a fire in 1988. Mom-and-pop shops, seafood restaurants and some offices are in buildings 50 years old. Railings are chipped and the attraction has a generally dated look.

But the waterfront also has more fundamental problems, including massive parking lots that reach up to the beach even as some restaurants are set back from the coast.

Lowe, a mixed-use and hospitality developer, paired with the Ruth Group, a Century City real estate company with retail experience, for its proposal. The duo selected Gensler, a San Francisco architectural firm, as the designer.

Lowe loosely likens its development to the Oxbow Public Market in Sonoma, a riverfront project, and the famous Pike Place Market in Seattle – both of which recycled historic waterfronts into popular lifestyle destinations.

Its project is broadly broken into two portions. The northern half would include restaurants, shops, an affordable hotel and a revitalized seaside lagoon. The southern half would include a resort hotel of 150 to 200 rooms, and a plaza lined with restaurants and a concert venue.

The signature architectural element would be a gateway bridge with two support towers that would rise over the marina dividing the two sides of the project.

Matt Walker, an executive vice president at Lowe, said during last week’s council meeting that the project was attractive to his firm for its ample space, and functioning marina and pier.

“It’s great to have a working pier, it creates a vitality. There’s a lot of energy to build on,” he said. “It’s a unique opportunity to have this much land all in one place, much of it a parking lot, all on the waterfront.”

To finance the project, Lowe would contribute its own equity and bring in outside investors, which it suggested could include downtown L.A.’s Oaktree Capital Group LLC or Starwood Capital Group Global LLC of Greenwich, Conn.

CenterCal is an El Segundo retail and lifestyle development company that built the 63-acre Collection at Riverpark retail center in Oxnard. Its project also would feature two major sections divided by the marina in the middle and connected by a pedestrian bridge.

The northern part would include a large plaza with movie theaters, eight-lane bowling alley and upscale brewery, while the southern side would include a park, a hotel of 150 to 200 rooms and an expansion of the existing outdoor marketplace. It also wants to add more shops, Class A office space and an amphitheater. The sprawling parking lots would be centralized into a parking structure.

“I see retail as the glue that holds everything else together,” said CenterCal Chief Executive Fred Bruning in public comments. “Whatever is done on these 15 acres has to be part of the greater community.”

Perkowitz + Ruth Architects of Long Beach was selected as project designer. CenterCal anticipates financing through a construction loan, and equity and credit from its pension fund partner, the California State Teachers Retirement System.

Construction target

Pacifica of San Diego has focused mostly on hospitality projects, but has been hired to work on the Chula Vista Bayfront Master Plan in San Diego County. Designed by San Diego architect Carrier Johnson + Culture, its plan for Redondo Beach calls for an enclosed multilevel marketplace with restaurants and shops. Suggested tenants include national chains such as P.F. Chang, Gordon Biersch and Five Guys Burgers & Fries, as well as cooking and clothing stores. It also has plans to revitalize the existing seaside lagoon wading pool.

Two hotels of about 100 rooms each also are planned and it would update existing office buildings on the site. Pacifica would self-finance the project if necessary but would prefer to take on some debt.

“The potential is so huge,” said Pacifica Chairman Ash Israni, who spoke during the council meeting. “It could be a world-class mixed-use project.”

The council plans to select the final developer by Oct. 30. The city already has obtained approval from the California Coastal Commission for up to 447,000 square feet of new development, while residents approved the project in a 2010 vote.

The city’s time line calls for the chosen developer to submit more detailed plans – after meetings with city officials, residents and others – by March. The city then would like for the environmental review process to be completed by the end of next year so that construction could begin in 2014.

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