Sport Chalet Owners to Scale Down Plans for Shopping Center

After six years of haggling and bitter disputes, the owners of the Sport Chalet have agreed to scale down plans to build a $25-million shopping center development in La Canada Flintridge, a move that appears to be supported by longtime critics of the project.

Developers agreed to reduce the office space after residents and City Council members made it clear in recent weeks that a large-scale development would not be accepted, said Sam Allen, spokesman for the Sport Chalet.

Significantly redesigned plans were revealed by the Sport Chalet at a special meeting of the La Canada Flintridge City Council on Thursday.

The latest plans would create a village with less density and fewer parking spaces on an 11.7-acre site at Foothill Boulevard and Angeles Crest Highway. The project would include a new Sport Chalet store, an upscale country market, retail shops and a major restaurant.

Allen said the latest plan “is much closer to what we really wanted” initially. The plan had been repeatedly changed and embellished at the city’s urging.

The latest proposal is the fifth revision since the Sport Chalet announced ambitious plans six years ago to redevelop the founding headquarters of the successful 30-year-old sporting goods chain--the largest commercial enterprise in the upper middle-income foothills community.

Allen credited outspoken critics of the project for suggesting the latest changes, which Allen said has created a more economically viable project.

In an interview, Robert Haueter, vice president of marketing for the Sport Chalet, singled out Tom Bollinger, a commercial real estate specialist and resident, for proposing alternatives that suited the concerns of the community and the developer.

Bollinger proposed to cut the amount of office space in half to 10,000 square feet, which reduced the number of parking spaces and eliminated most of the covered parking that the community had opposed, Haueter said.

Bollinger also suggested that pedestrian-oriented streets--with curbs, street lights and sidewalks rather than driveways leading into a parking lot--be built to converge in a European-style, one-way traffic circle that would serve as the focus of the project.

After drafting new designs, the project now totals about 143,000 square feet of office, retail and restaurant space. Previously, the developer was proposing a 164,000-square-foot project.

Haueter said the redesign gives the development a village-like atmosphere. Critics have been calling the Sport Chalet development “nothing but a big, dressed-up strip center.”

Haueter said Chalet officials “looked at Bollinger’s proposal from a business standpoint and found out his ideas had a lot of merit to them.” The scaled-down version now resolves many issues raised by the community while providing greater opportunity for profitability. “We looked at that and said, ‘Geez, he’s right,’ ” Haueter said.

The new plans were welcomed by homeowners at the council hearing last week. Robbie E. Monsuma, leader of the I Love La Canada Flintridge Committee, said the residents’ group is “encouraged with the cooperative spirit” shown by developers in recent weeks.

“We feel much better now,” she said, calling the latest proposal “the right direction.”

But she said residents and the developer still have to agree on a lengthy list of conditions that will be imposed on the development, such as sewage disposal, hours of service delivery and types of businesses to be permitted.

She said that some committee members still believe that even the scaled-down development is large in a community of only 20,800 residents.

Bollinger called the recent talks “honest, open and honorable communication.” He commended developers for “their courage” in considering a compromise. “Hopefully, the process of agreement has begun,” Bollinger said.

Sport Chalet officials had planned to meet privately with critics again on Monday to iron out any remaining differences. The results of that conference are expected to be revealed at a council meeting Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive.

City Council members said they hope to resolve the Sport Chalet issue and to end the 6-year-old controversy within two weeks, when the council is scheduled to break for summer vacation.

The controversy had severely divided the community between those who want to retain the quiet ambience of semi-rural residential estates and others who say the city needs more commercial development and the tax dollars it generates.

The shopping center proposal was the focus of a hotly contested City Council election in April in which three council members who supported the development beat out opponents who were critical of the plan.