Local News in Brief : Retail-Senior Center OKd

A combination commercial and senior citizens’ housing development was approved by the Redondo Beach City Council this week for the site of the former McCandless School.

The two-story, $14-million project, on Pacific Coast Highway between Garnet and Emerald streets, will have 15,000 square feet of retail space and 156 housing units for senior citizens. Residents will get meal and maid services. Twenty percent of the units must be rented to low-income senior citizens.

The project is expected to open in about 1 1/2 years, said Larry Persons, project manager for the developer, the Andover Cos.

The City Council changed the General Plan designation for the site to general commercial from multiple-family, medium-density residential, on the premise that the services provided will make the rental units more like a hotel than an apartment building.

The Redondo Beach City Elementary School District owns the site and has agreed to lease it to the developer for 60 years. Officials for the city, who want more senior housing, and for the school, who have faced declining enrollment in the last 15 years and need more income, have been working on plans regarding surplus school sites for about three years.