LAGUNA NIGUEL : City Alters Plans for Shopping Center

Shappell Industries has received final approval to build what will be the city’s largest shopping center, but the City Council decided to alter the project’s final design to deal with parking problems.

Although Shappell representatives had said previously that changing their plan could jeopardize agreements with prospective tenants, the council unanimously voted last week to swap the planned uses for two buildings on the 44-acre project.

By exchanging uses that Shappell designated for a fast-food outlet with one set aside for a “sit-down” restaurant, council members said they hoped to better distribute parking for the center, at the south corner of Pacific Park Drive and Alicia Parkway.

Moving the restaurant to a less congested area of the lot would give it the extra spaces needed for its customers, who would probably tie up spaces longer than someone passing through a fast-food site, Councilman Mark Goodman said.

Both buildings in question are among the 10 outlying satellite stores that surround the main strip shopping center in the 422,000-square-foot project.

At a Feb. 23 Planning Commission meeting, Shappell Industries Vice President Alan Cummins had said that swapping the intended uses for the two sites would present a problem to the center’s two major-store tenants, a Vons supermarket and Mervyn’s department store.

At the time, he said both chains had their own guidelines about site selection, including stipulations about nearby building usage. Because the two chains had agreed on the plans as designed by Shappell, any changes by the city might conflict with those guidelines.

The Planning Commission responded at that meeting by leaving the designs as they were, but insisting on a future parking study. Shappell appealed that condition to the council in Wednesday night’s special meeting.

After the council decision, Cummins said he was glad to see the project move forward despite the requirement to alter the final design. And, he added that the two anchor stores had agreed to set aside their own policies if necessary.

“We consulted with the tenants and came to the conclusion that we would accept any configuration the council approved,” Cummins said. “It is not a change we wanted to make voluntarily, but we are pleased the project finally got approval.”

Cummins said no other major tenants have been lined up for the center. The center, which City Manager Tim Casey has called “the most significant retail development in the community’s history,” will begin construction in the fall.