Muffler Shop Owner Wants Torrance to Up Purchase Offer
The offer from the city arrived one day last month when Walter J. (Jake) Egan was hard at work at the hydraulic racks outside Aable Muffler Shop, fitting a muffler into a car’s underbelly.
The offer is straightforward enough: The city wants to buy Egan’s muffler shop and the land it sits on for $87,000.
The city says plans to widen Torrance Boulevard would slash 18 feet off Egan’s piece of land--expanding the roadway to where the shop’s hydraulic racks stand today.
Egan bristles when he talks about the offer. His jaw stiffens behind his trademark gray beard. His voice rises with indignation.
“I didn’t rush down to City Hall and accept a check, did I? I think the offer is ridiculous. Less than ridiculous,” he said Tuesday during an interview at the muffler shop.
Corner lots at busy intersections sell for millions, Egan contends. He says his land is worth at least $1.8 million. And he has a challenge for the city.
“You find a corner on a main thoroughfare, with 46,800 cars a day going by it,” Egan said with a flourish. “Find that corner, buy it for $78,000--and I’ll move.”
But he’s not ready to reject the offer outright--at least, not in the newspapers. Jake Egan has become an expert at this dueling game. He’s been fighting Torrance city officials on and off for seven years over this 3,514-square-foot wedge of land where Torrance Boulevard meets Van Ness Avenue in the city’s old downtown.
The humble motif of Aable Muffler Shop--its aging gray walls, oil-spotted pavement and jaunty red-and-blue painted trim--is a startling accent amid the new redevelopment area much prized by city officials.
The shop squats at the edge of the landscaped expanse of the 101-acre, $225-million headquarters of American Honda Motor Co. Next month, employees will be moving into the sleek headquarters building, with its sea green-tinted windows that look out toward Aable Mufflers.
Old Torrance collides with new Torrance at this intersection--and that doesn’t make city officials happy.
The July 13 offer from the city opened the latest chapter in a long-running controversy.
It followed a Superior Court judge’s April ruling that the city could begin condemnation proceedings against the shop.
The letter to Egan from City Manager LeRoy J. Jackson starts the condemnation process. The city had the muffler-shop property appraised, the letter states. “The offer is the full amount of the appraisal, and the city has determined this amount to be just compensation for the property,” it says.
An enclosed appraisal statement places the market value of the land, building and equipment at $78,000, but adds on “severance damages” of $8,900.
The damages apply when the city takes part of a property and leaves a “non-economic portion,” said Assistant City Atty. William G. Quale. In this case, Egan would be left with only 400 square feet after the condemnation, so the city would buy that piece as well, Quale said.
A public hearing will be convened in the next month on the city’s taking public use of the property.
Then the City Council will vote on whether the condemnation is necessary. If that passes, the city would file a case seeking eminent domain in Superior Court, Quale said.
The city condemns property about once every three years, he said.
The current offer is negotiable, said City Atty. Kenneth L. Nelson. “Probably 95% of the acquisitions we go through, we negotiate,” he said.
Egan says he bought the muffler shop in 1970 for $25,000. He has been making $100-a-month payments and probably still owes about $3,400, he said this week. He says he does $287 in business a day at his shop.
And he is suspicious about the city appraisal, he says. “I never seen no appraiser. I don’t know who the appraiser is.”
But Quale counters: “We’ve hired an absolutely top-notch appraiser. This guy is not going to be off by a factor of 10 or 15.”
He gives little credence to Egan’s own estimate of the property’s worth. “$1.8 million? There’s no way,” Quale said. “Based on the appraisal we have from the appraiser, I don’t know how the city could justify paying that kind of money.”
Even at $1 million, the property would be difficult to sell, said Richard Rizika, a retail specialist and sales associate at Coldwell Banker Commercial in Torrance.
“I would have no buyers at that price,” Rizika said. On a per-foot basis, “the finest buildings in the South Bay would be in that range.” He gave as examples well-placed properties on Sepulveda Boulevard in Manhattan Beach or Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance.
As for the $87,000 city price, Rizika added, “there are buyers out there for properties at that price.”
A widely known figure in the old downtown, Egan is a former Carson councilman who spent nine months in federal prison for mail fraud and extortion in connection with the W. Patrick Moriarty political corruption case that rocked the state in the mid-1980s.
Egan’s problems with the city of Torrance date from 1983, when the city tried to include his property in the Honda redevelopment project. After Egan sued, the Torrance City Council--in its role as the city Redevelopment Agency--agreed in 1984 to exempt his wedge-shaped piece of land from the project and even paid his legal fees.
Then, three years later, the city began work on plans to improve Torrance Boulevard, saying it needed 18 feet of Egan’s property to straighten a curve. The 1984 agreement said only that the city would not take the property for redevelopment, and therefore it did not apply to road-widening, city officials said. A fraud lawsuit filed by Egan against the city is still pending.
Now, Egan says, he owes his lawyer $21,000. But he insists he is far from surrendering.
For instance, he says he is looking into the historical merits of his muffler shop, which he believes was first erected in 1936. He hypothesizes, half-flippantly: “Art Deco-style gas station, beautiful downtown Torrance. . . .”
He suspects the condemnation has less to do with street improvements than his close proximity to Honda.
“I don’t think the city has anything against me. I think you have a city that’s acting as an agent for a foreign investor,” Egan said.
A Honda spokesman says the company has no opinion in the condemnation debate.
“That matter is strictly between the city and the muffler shop property and doesn’t involve American Honda,” said spokesman Robert Butorac.
And Egan, standing outside his shop and gazing at the new headquarters, says he does not feel ill will toward Honda.
“What does this represent? Compatible business,” he said, motioning first at the Honda building and then at his shop.
“I don’t turn down a Honda. You bring in a Honda--I’ll fix it.”
