COSTA MESA : Renovation Is OKd at K mart Plaza

The City Council has approved a $10-million rehabilitation and remodeling of the 30-year-old K mart Plaza, an aging neighborhood shopping center on Harbor Boulevard that an owner acknowledged has become “the dumping ground of Costa Mesa.”

The City Council, which was nudged by nearby condominium owners who supported the upgrading, on Monday unanimously approved plans to add more than 73,000 square feet to the 115,850-square-foot center and to permit construction of new two-story, elbow-shaped structures to connect major buildings.

The K mart store, the 47th ever built, will grow from its 68,000 square feet to more than 90,000 square feet.

Cody M. Small, president of the CMS Development Company of Costa Mesa, said that construction for the center, at 2200 Harbor Blvd., will cost $7 million to $8 million. It reportedly will cost another $2 million to rebuild the interior of K mart.

K mart will remain open during renovation. Construction is expected to start in about four months.

Small said the center had sales of $18 million in 1991 and contributed about $130,000 in sales taxes to the city. By the time it is going full swing in 1993, it should have sales of about $40 million and contribute more than $400,000 to the city, he said.

Seemingly more more important to residents, though, was the promise that the rehabilitation would eliminate unwanted activities that reportedly occur in the center’s parking lots.

Roger McCullough, a representative of the Brighton Springs Homeowners Assn., said renovation “will solve many problems and enhance the value of our property.”

McCullough complained that commercial trucks are parked in the lots at all hours, with refrigeration units running late at night and engines warming up early in the morning.

He said vehicles are frequently abandoned, garbage is dumped and the lot has become a gathering place for vehicles of the homeless.

“We will be able to sleep with our windows open and enjoy the fresh air,” he said.

City officials have put conditions on the project, calling for restriction of nighttime delivery hours, the installation of speed bumps to slow down traffic, construction of an eight-foot-high block wall to buffer business activities and the addition of new landscaping.

“We are not proud of what we have now,” said John R. Hundley Sr., general partner of Gray Enterprises, the landowner.

“It’s become the dumping ground of Costa Mesa. We can’t afford to clean it up every day. We try every 30 days. We will redo the parking lot. It will be a total new center.”