HUNTINGTON BEACH : Old Surfboard Shop Going Down Tubes

Workers began tearing down the 70-year-old landmark building housing Jack’s Surfboards on Wednesday, a day after the City Council approved a $4-million, three-story structure on the downtown site.

The new building, a joint project between the owner and the city Redevelopment Agency, is planned to include an enlarged surf shop and a fast-food restaurant on the street level, with offices on the upper two stories. Details of the project must be approved in September by Planning Commission and council members.

The existing two-story Jack’s Surfboards building on Pacific Coast Highway and Main Street has been closed since December, when a threatening bulge appeared in its brick exterior wall. Owner Mike Abdelmuti originally resisted the agency’s requests to rebuild the shop, hoping to restore the historic structure.

Wooed by an enticing financial and loan package, however, he eventually agreed to replace his building with a new one, which city planners say will likely resemble the modern-style Pierside Pavilion on the opposite street corner.

The Redevelopment Agency will loan Abdelmuti as much as $3.5 million to rebuild. It will also pay him $1.56 million in compensation for lost business during construction, and will contribute $250,000 for new sidewalks, a public plaza and other improvements around the building. Abdelmuti will spend $1 million of his own money on the reconstruction project.

Additionally, the agency is giving Abdelmuti the Pacific Coast Highway property it owns next to his building. The agency-owned site, which formerly housed three T-shirt shops and a novelty store, will make up for the land Abdelmuti will lose under agency-mandated plans for increased street setbacks and the plaza.

The Redevelopment Agency will also set aside an estimated 120 parking spaces for the new building in a parking garage planned for the former Terry Buick site on 5th Street at Walnut Avenue, said Keith Bohr, a city redevelopment specialist.

In approving the project, some council members said they consider it a pivotal move in the city’s effort to revitalize its languishing downtown redevelopment project.

The dilapidated structure is expected to be demolished within two weeks, Bohr said. Construction on the new building will likely begin in October, he said.