ARCADIA : City Weighs Plans for Outdoor Complex Similar to CityWalk

Arcadia is looking into building a shopping and entertainment complex that city officials say might resemble Universal CityWalk or Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade.

The complex would be located on a 400-acre parcel that already includes the Santa Anita Racetrack and Fashion Park Mall. It could bring as many as 2 million patrons onto the Santa Anita complex annually, city officials said.

The proposal is subject to approval by the Arcadia City Council. City officials are currently preparing an environmental impact report to assess such factors as increases in traffic and the amount of sales tax revenues that would be generated.

High-end malls typically bring in $2 million to $4 million in taxes annually, said Rick Gomez, Arcadia’s deputy city manager.

Arcadia expects to hold public hearings on the project by the end of this year. If approved, parts of the complex could open as early as spring of 1997.

Gomez said the developers envision an outdoor atmosphere for shopping, dining and entertainment that is conducive to pedestrian traffic.

“We’re excited,” Gomez said. “We hope we’ll be able to put together all the pieces. But it’s so new for us that we still don’t have a complete picture of what it’s going to look like.”

The entertainment complex would be built on open land now mainly used for parking, with developers erecting multilevel parking structures to replace the existing lots, Gomez said.

AMC Theaters has agreed to build a 25-screen multiplex theater complex, which would be one the largest in Southern California. CityWalk, by comparison, has 20 movie screens, Gomez said.