Group Proposes $65-Million Center at Auto Plaza Site : Development: Compton City Council, however, deadlocks over whether to enter into formal negotiations with developers.

A development group has proposed a $65-million commercial and cultural center that would include a major department store, museum, an amphitheater and an artificial lake on vacant land in the Compton Auto Plaza.

But the City Council deadlocked Tuesday over whether to enter into formal negotiations with Pride Inc., the group formed to develop the project. The council last week decided to sell part of the remaining 25 acres of available land to a Mack Truck franchise. The council is scheduled to approve the formal sales contract with Mack on Jan. 23.

Council members Jane Robbins and Maxcy Filer said Tuesday they support the sale of 6.9 acres to Universal Mack Truck Sales and Services. Mayor Walter Tucker and Councilwoman Patricia Moore said they favored Pride’s proposal. Councilwoman Bernice Woods was absent because of illness.

Pride’s plans call for a major department store and a string of smaller retail shops and small restaurants, many of which would be owned by minority entrepreneurs. The commercial section of the development, which is to include movie theaters and a health club, would be built around a lake, a museum and cultural center, and an outdoor theater that would seat 2,000 people.

Filer said Wednesday morning that the project is not “believable.” For one thing, department store executives have told him that a major department store would require 60 to 70 acres, far more land than would be available at the auto plaza, Filer said.

Moore called Pride’s plan a “marvelous project, a splendid project in terms of economic development, of job opportunities.” Tucker said it would keep local dollars in the city.

Pride wanted the council to enter into an exclusive 120-day negotiating period, during which the group would make a good-faith deposit of $20,000.

Carlos A. Siderman, Pride’s spokesmen and one of seven partners listed in the development proposal, said the group will continue to press the city to negotiate and will study possible revisions in the development plan.

Siderman told the council, however, that the council’s decision to sell a parcel to Universal Mack seriously impaired Pride’s development options. The auto plaza is alongside the 91 Freeway. The parcel that Mack wants is on the northeast corner at Greenleaf Boulevard and Alameda Street.

Siderman said the people in Pride have development track records and would finance the project themselves. The city will not have to issue bonds to help pay for it, he said.

Among the partners in Pride is the Rev. Joe B. Hardwick, pastor of Praises of Zion Church in Los Angeles. He told the council Tuesday: “Let the record be clear. We are ready, willing and able to put the money up. Talk is cheap but money walks.”

Also listed as partners are the Rev. Jerome Fisher of Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Compton, and B & A Construction Co. of Compton, which is doing rehabilitation work on City Hall. Other partners are Jack Hollander and Associates Inc., which Siderman identified as an architectural firm; Sinanian Development Inc., which has developed several small shopping centers, apartments and office buildings, and a firm identified only as 50 N. La Cienega Development Co. in Beverly Hills, which owns a building at that address.