GLENDALE : Developer to Seek Project Financing

Glendale’s next major effort to redevelop and revitalize its downtown area inched forward this week with an agreement allowing a developer to begin acquiring property for the project.

Plans for the long-awaited Glendale Marketplace, which is proposed for a two-block area bounded by Brand Boulevard, Broadway and Harvard and Louise streets, include a multiplex cinema, three or four major retailers and numerous smaller boutiques, and restaurants ranging from fast food to formal dining.

The Glendale Redevelopment Agency voted Tuesday to give JMB/Urban Development Co. 180 days to prove that it can finance the project, get the interest of major retail stores and obtain options to buy 60% of the land in question, excluding the city-owned portions of the site.

“The idea of this project is to provide a place that combines retail, restaurants and entertainment, and to provide a location for promotional-type retail tenants that want to be in Glendale but prefer a street location rather than be in the Galleria,” said Kirk Pelser, project manager with the Redevelopment Agency.

A major music/entertainment store, a sporting goods store and a large chain bookstore are among the types of retailers city officials and business leaders hope to attract to the project.

Pelser said JMB/Urban must give the Redevelopment Agency a progress report in 90 days. If it appears the builder will not be able to get financing and is not generating interest from tenants, the city will have the option to walk away from the deal at that time.

But if all goes well, the second half of the 180-day period would be spent commencing work on an environmental impact report, designing a multilevel, 970-space parking structure and refining construction plans for the site.

In a best-case scenario, city officials hope to break ground on the development in summer, 1995.

But officials admit that date could be pushed back if negotiations with the dozen-or-so property owners who control much of the two-block area prove difficult.

Redevelopment officials have invited all affected property owners to a meeting at 4 p.m. Tuesday in the Planning Department hearing room, 633 E. Broadway, to discuss the matter.