Plans Unveiled for 18-Acre Retail Center

Plans for an 18-acre shopping center at Brookhurst Street and Ellis Avenue in Fountain Valley were unveiled to the public at City Hall on Wednesday night.

The $10-million, one-story development, proposed by Diversified Shopping Center, would house an Alpha Beta supermarket containing a pharmacy as its anchor tenant, said Lee Wieder, project consultant.

Costa Mesa-based Diversified Shopping Center manages 50 shopping centers in Southern California and owns a similar, 14-acre complex on the southwest corner of the intersection.

Clinton Sherrod, city planning and building director, said Wednesday that he is concerned about the impact on traffic. “That’s the area we have to take the closest look at,” he said.

“Brookhurst is one of the three (or) four heaviest north-south arterials in the entire county,” with about 50,000 cars per day, said Clark Corbin, a Police Department traffic sergeant. Although both streets have metered on-ramps to the San Diego Freeway, he said, they have not helped the traffic flow.

But, he said, “I have no problem with the shopping center.”

Andrew Resnik, spokesman for a homeowners association in the Tiburon condominium complex 100 yards from the proposed development, praised the developers for meeting with area residents to hear concerns before formally presenting the plan to the city.

“There’s no way we’re going (continue to) to have strawberry fields anyway,” said Resnik.