Shopping Center Plan OKd

The Hawthorne City Council has voted 4-1 to approve a 34,100-square-foot neighborhood shopping center with retail stores and two restaurants, McDonald’s and Soup Kitchen.

Councilman Steve Andersen voted against the project, saying he objects to the prominent place the McDonald’s restaurant will have in the 1.5-acre project on Rosecrans Avenue, west of the San Diego Freeway.

The shopping center is the smallest of three redevelopment projects pending in the area. The others are a $200-million “urban village” on a 28-acre site and a $160-million mixed-use project on the 38-acre Mattel Toys site.

Andersen said he had hoped for a landmark-type project on the high-visibility Rosecrans site. “In every council member’s heart,” he said, “there lurks the desire to have a trophy structure” there.

Mayor Betty J. Ainsworth, who voted with the majority, said the city is eagerly awaiting development of this key site, which is near the city’s most expensive residential neighborhood, Holly Glen.

The project is to be finished by the first quarter of 1990.