ARCADIA : Entertainment, Retail Center Planned at Racetrack

Santa Anita Park officials announced Wednesday a proposal for a multimillion-dollar entertainment and retail village in the racetrack’s huge parking lot.

The racetrack’s owner, the Santa Anita Companies, envisions a village about the size of Disneyland’s Main Street with a multiplex cinema, restaurants, a 2,000- to 3,000-seat theater, food outlets, bookstores, a virtual reality gaming center and possibly an ice rink, the officials said.

“We’re in the process of developing plans for an entertainment-retail complex almost contiguous to the racetrack,” said Christopher T. Stirling, president of Santa Anita Realty Enterprises. “We’re going to try and create a village feel to it.”

Santa Anita has been searching for ways to boost revenue and use its 145-acre parking lot on Huntington Drive since racetrack attendance began declining with the lottery and off-track wagering, officials said.

The project, which would be built in phases, could take up 3O to 40 acres between the track’s main grandstand and Santa Anita Fashion Park, which is half-owned by the company, officials said. It would be separate from the track’s operation and designed to serve the region’s residents rather than tourists. Santa Anita is consulting with nearby residents, and officials said they expect to submit plans to the city in the first quarter of 1995.

Construction could begin in 1996 and the first phase would open the next year. Santa Anita officials declined to disclose the exact cost of the project.