Anaheim : Tentative OK Given $200-Million Complex

After 18 months and more than 10 public hearings, city officials Tuesday gave tentative approval to a $200-million proposed hotel and office complex just blocks from Disneyland and the Convention Center.

At the same time, City Council members agreed to look again at an option rejected in April--allowing the developers to use the city’s power of eminent domain to acquire a portion of an adjacent strawberry farm that its owners do not want to sell.

Standing in the way of a 17-story hotel, two 14-story office complexes and two 180-unit condominium towers is an environmental impact report that calls for the construction of two access roads across an adjacent strawberry farm at 1854 S. Harbor Blvd.

Despite many meetings of the involved parties and what Mayor Don Roth called a “record in the number of public hearings,” developers from Hong Kong-based Alexander Ltd. and Becker Ltd. and members of the Hiroshi Fujishige family could not reach terms on the property’s value. The Fujishige family wants $1 million for every acre used for the roads, while the developers say the land is worth about $30,000 per acre, according to their respective attorneys.

Floyd Farano, who represents the owners of the development site, the former Riviera Mobilehome Park, encouraged council members Tuesday to forgo the roads--actually extensions of Convention Way and Clementine Street. “It takes the city off the hook” as well as the developers and the Fujishige family, Farano said, adding that the report does not call for the simultaneous construction of the roads with the development.

A staff member, however, cited City Traffic Engineer Paul Singer’s recommendation that the roads be required if the project is to be approved.

In April, a member of the Fujishige family surprised city officials--who had discussed granting their powers of eminent domain to the developer--when he agreed to give up about eight acres of his land for the roads. But as of Tuesday, the two parties appeared to have made little progress.

Farano told council members that the delay in getting the project under way cost the developers several prospective clients.