Costa Mesa : Bear Street Name Change Withdrawn

A well-traveled street near South Coast Plaza won’t lose its historic name after all--at least for now.

A proposal by C. J. Segerstrom & Sons, the development firm, to the Costa Mesa Planning Commission to change the name of Bear Street to South Coast Plaza Drive has been withdrawn, and Monday’s meeting of the commission to consider the change has been canceled.

Segerstom withdrew its request for the hearing to “do more homework,” said Perry Valentine, a planner for the City of Costa Mesa.

Two other streets in the immediate area are called Plaza Drive and South Coast Drive, which city planners contend would have caused confusion for motorists.

Bear Street is named for the Bear family whose members originally settled in the county in 1872. It winds through Costa Mesa and Santa Ana behind the massive South Coast Plaza shopping mall. Its northern end terminates at Segerstom Avenue.

Santa Ana in 1980 rejected a similar request for a name change for Bear Street.

Segerstrom officials said the name change might be brought up again.

“I don’t think this will be dropped entirely,” South Coast Plaza spokesman Werner Escher said Friday.

“At the moment we feel that any effective street name change would have to be coordinated with Santa Ana, and we’ll be waiting until we do have a cooperative effort,” Escher said.

C. J. Segerstrom & Sons is the developer of South Coast Plaza, one of the nation’s most successful shopping malls. The Orange County Performing Arts Center, located immediately to the east of the South Coast Plaza complex on land donated by Segerstrom, opens late next month.

Segerston officials said they requested the name change to facilitate access to the retail and arts complexes.