HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Is Step Closer to Redoing Downtown

The city Redevelopment Agency has moved a step closer to completing its seven-year campaign to rebuild two blocks at the heart of its downtown redevelopment project.

The agency last week entered into an agreement to talk exclusively with a developer and a group of property owners about how to reconstruct 4 1/2 acres of aging buildings in an area bounded by Pacific Coast Highway, Walnut Avenue and Main and 6th streets.

Under the agreement, the Redevelopment Agency, the Long Beach-based Coultrup Development Co. and owners of six properties have until Nov. 15 to work out details of redevelopment plans for the area, considered the centerpiece of the remaining downtown redevelopment efforts.

Since 1984, the agency has been working to replace the structures in the downtown business district with new developments. Property owners and historic preservationists had long lobbied to save the buildings, which they argued are a vital component of the city’s history.

In recent months, however, most of the owners of the shops in the two blocks have agreed to level and reconstruct their buildings.

The negotiating agreement marks an important move toward closing a development deal, said Keith Bohr, a city redevelopment specialist. “This is the closest we’ve been in the 3 1/2 years I’ve been working on this,” he said.

Tentative plans call for between 100 and 130 condominiums to be built in a four-story complex on the block between 5th and 6th streets. The targeted area does not include a historic home at 6th Street and Walnut Avenue, which is being restored as a bed-and-breakfast facility.

In the block between 5th and Main Streets, which makes up much of the downtown shopping district, the existing shops would be razed and rebuilt in a two-story structure.

Jim and Vicki Lane, who own a store on Main and Walnut, plan to restore rather than reconstruct their building. Mike Abdelmuti, who owns the Jack’s Surfboards building on Main and Pacific Coast Highway, has entered into a separate development agreement with the agency. His building, which is now nearly demolished, is to be rebuilt as an expanded surfboard shop, with office space upstairs.

The agency has previously entered into exclusive talks with developers on the two blocks, but those efforts collapsed, mainly due to lack of financial backing. Bohr said he is more confident with the new agreement, mainly because the agency is dealing with a group of associated owners, rather than talking with each of them individually.