DANA POINT : Eyesores Should Be Gone by Summer

At one time, all three buildings in the 24500 block of Del Prado Avenue housed thriving businesses. But Dana Point Glass moved several blocks away, Windsurfer magazine drifted to the Los Angeles area and the Captain’s Anchorage restaurant shut down.

The 73,000-square-foot site is the future home of the Dana Point Post Office. But in the meantime, the buildings sit unattended, attracting vagrants and prompting complaints from area residents.

“It’s a concern for us because they’re almost inviting for anybody who’s transient,” said Lt. Dan Martini of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “We can’t really prevent people from going inside, and the potential for danger is very high. . . . I’ve been inside some very poor-conditioned businesses and residences in my time with the department, but this was the absolute worst.”

Martini said sheriff’s deputies have arrested several trespassers using the place as temporary living quarters.

The federal government bought the five lots of property about two years ago, according to Terry Luccarelli, who owned the restaurant and glass company, and Arlene Pierce, who owned the magazine building. Demolition of the structures has been held up because there is asbestos in the restaurant and magazine building, said Joe Breckenridge, manager of communications for the U.S. Postal Service’s Santa Ana office.

“Asbestos is such a hazardous material that it has slowed us down there,” Breckenridge said. “It is something that has to be treated very carefully. We can’t just bulldoze it until the asbestos has been removed.”

Breckenridge estimated that the glass and magazine buildings will be destroyed within three months and that the old restaurant will be gone within three weeks.

After that, a post office of about 20,000 square feet--to be designed by Gilbert Aja Associates of Irvine--will be built on the property, Breckenridge said.

None of that will be done too quickly for merchants and residents of the neighborhood, however.

From his kitchen window across Coast Highway, Jim Hayton can see the boarded-up, abandoned buildings.

“You can’t even begin to describe what it’s like in those buildings,” Hayton said. “The smell and the flies--it’s incredible.”