Torrance Divided on New Look : Downtown: Project backers see new life for area. Critics say redevelopment will destroy it.

Some people look at Old Downtown Torrance and see a vision of pre-mall America: a 1950s-style Main Street, low-slung stucco storefronts, tree-shaded medians, the familiar red-and-gold sign above the Newberry store.

Others look at the same storefronts and see urban decay.

These are the two images of the Old Downtown fueling a fierce tug of war over a $35-million proposal to build new condominiums and retail space in the heart of the area.

Supporters of the project claim that it will bring new life to a deteriorating neighborhood. Its critics argue that the developers--in the course of attempting to save downtown--will instead destroy it.

The critics scored a major victory last month with the city Planning Commission’s firm 6-0 vote against the proposal from Gascon Mar Ltd. and Sam Levy Investment Co.

But the war is not yet won. Its finale may be played out Tuesday evening on the floor of the City Council chambers, as council members hear from project critics and supporters and ponder whether to uphold the commission’s rejection.

Of the six council members who will be present to vote Tuesday night, one favors the project, three appear to be leaning toward supporting it and two others say they are undecided. None of the six expressed strong criticisms of the plan in interviews Thursday and Friday.

“I can’t say before a hearing that I’m going to vote for it, but I’m looking favorably on it,” said Mayor Katy Geissert, who called the project “the most positive approach to downtown renovation that I’ve seen in my 16 years in public office.”

Councilman Mark Wirth said that while he will not make a decision until Tuesday, he likes the project’s concept. Although some downtown merchants oppose placing condominiums in what has been a commercial area, Wirth said he does not object to the idea.

“I realize there are people who like downtown the way it is, consider it quaint, whatever,” Wirth said. “But what to some people looks quaint, to others looks like empty stores.”

And Councilman Dan Walker says bluntly: “Based on what I’ve seen, I’m inclined to vote for it at this time.”

The critics are continuing their campaign.

One of the best-known opponents of the project is John C. Geyer, owner of MCB Paint & Decorating Center on Marcelina Avenue.

Geyer intends to go to the Tuesday meeting armed with a petition that he said bears the signatures of 226 people, primarily downtown business people, who are protesting the project as now planned.

Council members report they are receiving letters from both camps.

“I’ve been getting letters and petitions saying, ‘Don’t sell out to developers,’ ” said Councilman Tim Mock. He said he received a newspaper clipping about the project in the mail, with a comment scrawled across it, urging him not to fill his war chest with “developer money.”

The developers, meanwhile, were quietly meeting with council members last week. Wirth met with them Wednesday, Councilman George Nakano on Thursday, and Mock and Councilwoman Dee Hardison on Friday.

Under a state law known as the Brown Act, a majority of the seven-member council cannot meet to discuss public business except in public meetings. At last week’s sessions, council members said, they met individually with several representatives of the project.

“They asked for the meeting, and I offered to meet,” said Hardison, who said she does not plan to publicly comment on the project until the Tuesday meeting.

“They never, ever meet with a quorum,” said City Atty. Kenneth L. Nelson. But developers are free to stop by and talk to council members, he said.

The Gascon Mar/Levy project is made up of three parts, totaling 179 new condominiums, 28,000 square feet of retail space and 529 parking spaces in surface and underground lots.

The project would occupy 3.5 acres of the downtown area, which totals 60 to 70 acres, said Allan Mackenzie, a partner with Gascon Mar. It would displace eight or nine businesses, of which at least three are expected to move into the new project, he said. Occupants of 20 to 25 units in the El Roitan residential hotel would also be displaced, he said.

The El Roitan and nearby parking lots at Cabrillo Avenue and Torrance Boulevard would be replaced with a retail plaza and new condominiums.

A condominium project would rise at Cravens and El Prado avenues, replacing retail buildings that house a bookstore, a coffee shop, a grocery store and offices.

What is now the Newberry store on El Prado would be refurbished and subdivided into smaller stores. The rear would be removed to provide more parking.

Planning commissioners, when they rejected the project, said they feared that it was too large and dense for the neighborhood.

Geyer agrees. He believes the project’s parking is inadequate and he questions the effects of placing so many condominiums in a downtown commercial area.

He compared the plan to transforming the Broadway department store at Del Amo Fashion Center into a condominium complex. “Could you picture putting condos in? That just doesn’t make sense.”

Geyer also opposes removing tree-planted medians along El Prado and Sartori avenues.

“The city of Torrance even uses those trees in some of their pictorial representations of downtown Torrance. Now we’re going to eliminate that,” Geyer said.

Finally, he is concerned that if the project is successful, landlords who own the surrounding storefronts will raise rents and may try to force out existing tenants to bring in new businesses that can afford to pay higher rents.

Mackenzie said he believes that some Torrance residents did not fully understand the project when it was first announced.

The project will only mean the net loss of about 15,000 square feet of retail space, he said. Moreover, “we believe that a substantial percentage of the existing retail is substandard, under-utilized, in need of renovation.”

While some planning commissioners had urged developers to make the project smaller, Mackenzie said that could threaten its economic viability.

The developers are prepared to offer space in the project at a reduced rent to the Torrance Community Theater, which would be displaced by the renovation.

“We think it’ll just be a super location for them,” Mackenzie said.

And space will be set aside in what is now the Newberry store for a supermarket, perhaps the existing Torrance Super Market, which would also be displaced by the project, he said.

Some familiar Torrance names are associated with the project. The managing partner of Sam Levy Investment is Alan M. Schwartz, grandson of Sam Levy, one of the city’s business founders. And James R. Armstrong, mayor of Torrance from 1978 to 1986, is working for SLI as a project consultant.

Schwartz calls the downtown area a throwback to the California of an earlier era. The impetus for the project, he said, was “to take what is essentially a Brigadoon in Southern California--and make it relevant to the 21st Century.”

Whatever the council decides next week will have a major impact on downtown, and that does not make the decision an easy one, council members say.

“We have trade-offs here, in terms of what the city wants,” Mock said. “We want to get rid of the blight in the downtown but we want to take care of the character of the downtown.”

Those two views are mirrored in the comments of some of the merchants whose storefronts would be torn down to make way for the Gascon Mar/Levy venture.

One rainy night last week, owner William F. Wilson talked about the project as he prepared to close for the night at the Torrance Book Store, a used bookshop on El Prado. The shop would be torn down to make way for new construction.

Wilson is not sure the project fits downtown.

“I don’t think condos is the right use of the land--right in the middle of a commercial area,” Wilson said. “I don’t have any objections to condos. I just think they should be on the periphery.”

Down the street, Sam Kim was waiting for his last customers to leave so that he could lock the doors at the Torrance Super Market, a family-owned grocery store.

The store, like much of the old downtown, retains the flavor of a bygone era. It is dimly lit. An old-fashioned sign reading “Meat Dept.” hangs on the back wall.

“People ask us a lot of times, ‘Are they going to tear down the building?’ We tell them we’re moving close by,” said Kim. He said he supports the project and believes that the new condominiums would help business.

These days, “after 6 o’clock when the businesses close down, there’s no one around,” Kim said.