Shopping Center Gets Tentative OK : Business: Danny Bakewell’s firm plans 70,000-square-foot facility in Northwest Pasadena. City would subsidize it.

The Pasadena City Council on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to a plan by developer and community activist Danny Bakewell to build a shopping center in Northwest Pasadena with the help of the city’s redevelopment agency.

City officials and representatives of Bakewell’s Pasadena Commercial Development Co. will meet to work out a formal agreement, which will go back to the City Council for final approval.

Both parties said they had cleared some major hurdles and were committed to developing the planned 70,000-square-foot shopping center at the southwest corner of the intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard.

It would be the first “high-quality” shopping center in the predominantly black and Latino area, officials said. City officials and Bakewell said they hoped the center would spark an economic rebirth in one of the city’s poorest areas.

“It’s a very important project. It’s a community-driven project,” said Councilman Chris Holden, whose 3rd District includes the site of the proposed shopping center.

“Hopefully, it will set a precedent for development by other African Americans, Mexicans, people of color,” said Bakewell, who is black. He heads the Los Angeles-based Brotherhood Crusade.

Bakewell said his company will spend about $5 million to build the center, which will include a Vons or similar supermarket and smaller stores. Bakewell has said the center is committed to employing area residents to fill about 250 jobs.

Councilman William E. Thomson was the only council member to vote against the preliminary agreement. “I don’t think economically it is a good arrangement for the city of Pasadena,” Thomson said.

The redevelopment agency is expected to pay an estimated $10 million to buy about five acres of land for the shopping center, relocate existing businesses and demolish buildings on the site. Redevelopment officials are negotiating with two landowners to acquire the property.

The site is now home to a liquor and grocery market, a check-cashing store, a nail shop and other small stores.

The redevelopment agency will sell the property to Bakewell’s firm for $1.5 million, which the firm would repay over the next 20 years out of profits generated by the shopping center.