Temple City Moves Ahead With Retail Center Plans

Plans for a shopping center at the corner of Las Tunas Drive and Rosemead Boulevard moved a step forward last week despite a legal effort by residents to block the project.

The City Council and Community Redevelopment Agency approved the future sale of 198,000 square feet of land to Champion/Long Beach Savings Associates Development Co. for $3.5 million.

Dimensions of Center

The proposed single-story shopping center would cover 82,000 or 109,000 square feet on the northwest corner of the streets. The rest of the land would be used for parking.

If Champion can also acquire private properties north of Elm Avenue that are not in the redevelopment area, the company will be able to build the larger complex. The company would then have to pay an additional $400,000 to the redevelopment agency because the value of the project would increase, City Manager Karl Koski said.

The agreement authorizes the redevelopment agency to begin negotiating with the owners of four businesses and six rental homes in the redevelopment area where the shopping center would be built.

A lawsuit by seven residents to prevent the agency and the city from signing the agreement is pending in Los Angeles Superior Court. The suit, filed Feb. 2, claims that the project’s environmental impact report, certified by the City Council on Jan. 3, is inadequate.

Members of the council also act as the redevelopment agency board.

Before the unanimous vote Tuesday, council members assured tenants fearing displacement from their homes that condemnation procedures would have to be approved in separate actions. City officials hope that the sale of the homes and businesses to the agency will be voluntary.

But one resident and representatives from two businesses seemed determined to stay where they are.

City Promise Cited

Madie Smith, who has rented one of the homes for 30 years, said she had put in new drapes and carpets after city officials told her in August that no homes would be taken for the project.

“My husband is almost 80, I’m getting there, and we’re both hurting over this,” she told the council. She added that she doesn’t want to move because she is within walking distance of many businesses.

Esther Karvelas, who owns the corner property where the Argos Family Restaurant has stood for 50 years, told the council: “I don’t like to talk about price. I’d like to stay there.”

Representatives from the adjacent Bank of America branch, which has been there for 26 years, warned that they will aggressively oppose any attempt to relocate them.

“The bank would give up its excellent site and lose the benefits of a free-standing building, controlled parking and easy access,” bank official Ned Miller wrote in a March 22 letter to Mayor Mary Lou Swain. Miller said the branch would lose $500,000 a year in revenues if it is moved to “an inferior site.”

Although the agency has already acquired about 82,000 square feet of now-vacant land that will be included in the sale, it still must purchase the rest of the land for an estimated $4.8 million, Koski said.

The agency will have to borrow about $900,000 from the city to complete the transaction, according to agency attorney Thomas Parrington. The money would be repaid with 12% interest over 22 years, he said.

Arcadia resident Sherry Passmore, who has served as a consultant for several slow-growth groups in the San Gabriel Valley, reminded the agency that it is still paying off the money it borrowed to develop the K mart shopping center on Rosemead south of Las Tunas. That project was completed in 1976.

Once the project is completed, the agency will begin collecting at least $80,000 a year in property taxes, Koski said. The complex is expected to generate at least $200,000 a year in sales taxes.

Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Froehle said there is no question that some kind of development will have to occur at the site because the city needs the revenue.