Gardena Counts on 4 Big Projects to Transform City

Since its incorporation in 1930, the City of Gardena has blossomed from a farm town surrounded by strawberry fields to a slow-paced, bedroom community of about 50,000 residents.

By 1990, city officials hope, Gardena will reach its next incarnation: a major South Bay commercial center worthy of its self-proclaimed slogan, the “Freeway City.”

Officials are counting on commercial development--including four major projects representing more than $100 million in investments--to change the way people think of Gardena by bringing in jobs and revenue, and creating a new identity as a major business center.

Economic Recovery

“It certainly shows there’s an economic renaissance in the city,” said Mayor Donald L. Dear of the four projects that are scheduled to get under way this year. “Gardena will be very different as a result of these projects. This is all the result of a long-term council effort to recover from loss of income from such things as Proposition 13 and the closing of three card clubs.”

Gardena has lost half its card club revenues since the 1970s, when there were six clubs in the city. By 1987, the number of clubs had dwindled to three, the Normandie Casino, the Horseshoe Club and the Eldorado Club, which together contribute about $3 million annually to city revenue.

City officials hope to recoup some of that loss with revenue from projects like the $20-million Gardena Gateway Shopping Center near the Artesia Freeway.

It will, along with other projects, provide a “dramatic entrance to the city” from the two major arteries leading into Gardena from the east: the Artesia Freeway, which ends at Gardena, and Redondo Beach Boulevard, the city’s major commercial thoroughfare, said Community Development Director George Nony.

The project, which is being developed by the Alexander Haagen Development Co. will help “put the community on the map,” Nony said.

“It gives the appearance that something is happening here and has the tendency to generate additional business,” Nony said. “We want to do something to upgrade the city’s image.”

The Gardena Gateway Shopping Center alone will provide an estimated $1 million annually in tax revenue, said Tom Corley, project manager for the Alexander Haagen company. The city’s share of sales taxes in 1985-86 was $5.1 million.

Only recently have residents protested any commercial development proposal, and that came at City Council and Planning Commission meetings on a plan for a covered mall at Redondo Beach Boulevard near Van Ness Avenue. That project faces a series of public hearings and approvals before it can be built.

Residents, concerned about possible increases in crime and traffic congestion, told planning commissioners that they would like a decrease in the number of large shopping malls near residential neighborhoods.

End to Delays

Dear acknowledged that council members are concerned about traffic problems, particularly on Redondo Beach Boulevard, but said each project’s effect on traffic and crime will be considered individually.

Although delays due to financing and design problems have hampered the start of construction for a hotel and office complex called the Eldorado Center, developers and city officials expect construction on the four major projects to begin this year.

The Gateway center will be built on 19.7 acres of former Caltrans property, on the north and south sides of Artesia Boulevard between Normandie and Vermont avenues. The city entered into an agreement with the state Department of Transportation in August, 1987, to buy the land, with an option to purchase an additional eight acres near the site.

The Haagen company financed the city’s purchase, putting up $7.5 million. Escrow is due to close within the month, said Tom Corley, project manager for the Haagen company.

The City Council will give the Gardena Gateway Center final approval at its meeting Tuesday. Ground breaking is set for Thursday.

“It’s the last large open area in the city and it will affect that area of the community for decades to come,” Dear said.

The 170,000-square-foot Gateway center will include a Pace department store, a supermarket, restaurants and eventually a community center on 3.3 acres of the property donated by the Haagen company. The Gardena Normandie Development Group is donating $250,000 toward the community center.

“We’re proposing developing with the city some kind of community building, possibly a YMCA,” Corley said, but the project is still “in the conception stage.”

Another development is the ambitious but long-delayed Eldorado Center, a $56-million hotel, office and casino complex, adjacent to the Eldorado Card Club.

Originally scheduled for completion in January, 1989, it was delayed when negotiations with one of the project’s backers fell through, said George Anthony, a partner in the project and owner of the card club. Anthony said he expects to sign an agreement in June with a new backer, TTI Enterprises, to split the cost of building the complex.

There were also problems with the original design of the Eldorado project, said City Planner Roy Kato. A new architect, Fred Cook of the Hill Partnership of Newport Beach, has been hired to rework the original design, which called for an 18-story, 286-room hotel, a ballroom with seating for 1,200, retail shops, restaurants and underground parking for the complex, at Redondo Beach Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.

Construction has already begun on the five-story, $19-million Condor medical building on Redondo Beach Boulevard near Gardena Memorial Hospital, said project architect Richard Mitsuoka, of GMP Architects in Los Angeles.

The project, being built by the Condor Wescorp development firm of Studio City and the Hazama Gumi Construction Co. of Japan, will house medical clinics on the first floor, with upper floors designed as medical office suites, Mitsuoka said.

Ground-breaking ceremonies are planned before the end of May on another project, a 65,000-square-foot shopping center and office complex near Artesia Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. It is being built by the Gardena Normandie Group, a development firm whose principal partners are Ken Hirai, John Peri and Ken Tomita.

Completion of the $10-million development is projected for the end of the year, said Tomita, a Torrance physician.