Altadena : Smaller Project Urged

Seven months after a developer withdrew from negotiations for a 14-acre shopping center in West Altadena, officials from the county Community Development Commission on Tuesday urged a community committee to consider a less ambitious project.

“We are very open to anything that makes sense to bring a supermarket to the area,” commission Redevelopment Manager Paulette Ramsay told the nine members of the Project Area Committee. Ramsay said she will contact supermarket chains about locating in the area, and suggested that it would be more feasible to develop an eight- or 10-acre complex.

Committee President Christopher Smith protested that county consultants had approved the 14-acre plan. Ramsay responded that a project of that size does not appear feasible because the commission has only $3.3 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funds to subsidize the project.

The 15-member advisory committee was formed to give residents of this unincorporated community a voice in an 80-acre redevelopment effort approved by the county Board of Supervisors in 1986.

The redevelopment zone includes residential and commercial properties on the west end of Woodbury Road and north on Lincoln Avenue. The planned site for the shopping center was the southeast corner of Lincoln and Figueroa Drive.

The commission’s negotiations with Topa Management Co. for the $14-million complex fell through in November because Topa could not secure an anchor supermarket, a commission official said.