Council Will Weigh Renewal Proposals

The City Council, adopting an ambitious plan to redevelop the downtown area, will look at everything from a Spanish Mediterranean theme to a modern hodgepodge design of shops in a town center plaza.

Attempting to follow the recommendations made by a group of more than 100 citizens, two competing developers--the Alexander Haagen Co. and Watt Commercial Development--have presented plans for the redevelopment of the city’s downtown center.

By the second week of January, the council should decide which company to use and how the future downtown will look.

Councilman Gene A. Leyton said the council “wants to know how the community feels about these proposals. If what the developers are suggesting doesn’t match what our citizens want, then it’s back to the drawing board.”

In October, community leaders and residents contributed to a “vision document,” which outlined the needs and wants of the community as seen by the redevelopment agency, the citizens and professional planners.

“Our goals are to fulfill the redevelopment agency’s expectations,” said John Hunter of Watt Commercial Development. “We want to put new life in an old, dilapidated downtown.”

Watt’s proposal reflects a “Spanish Mediterranean look,” which Hunter said relates to the old city hall along Brea Boulevard. The center of the downtown in this proposal would be located at the intersection of Imperial Highway and Brea Boulevard.

Haagen’s proposal, which covers a 29-acre area, would cost about $31 million.

“We feel we’ve taken a different approach,” said Chris Fahey of the Alexander Haagen Co. “We’ve made our central focus Birch Street and Brea Boulevard, and re-created the town central plaza.”

Plans include establishing a “modern, first-class supermarket” and a major chain department store, while still “engendering a town plaza feel with small shops and specialty retail and boutique stores,” Fahey said. “We want to create an excitement about the downtown plaza feel.”

“We’ll be utilizing brick, wood and stucco, all with colorful awnings, to bring a clean mixture of architectural designs,” he said.

Both plans call for a movie theater to attract more people to the downtown area.

“The movie theater will be a strong amenity to the downtown,” Hunter said. “It should expand merchandising and attract customers at later hours.

“We didn’t want a place that would roll out the sidewalks at 10 a.m. and roll them back in at 6 p.m.” he said. “We want a downtown that will open at 8 a.m. and stay open until 10 p.m.”

The proposed movie theater from the Alexander Haagen Co. includes a covered outdoor food court west of Birch Street that would be the “entertainment pavilion of the town,” Fahey said.

“The theater is all oriented around a carousel,” he said. “It gives off that Old World feel.”

Wide sidewalks and a strong “pedestrian orientation” were common to both proposals.