Another Hurdle for Marblehead Project

Ever since Richard Nixon and his library spurned San Clemente for Yorba Linda nearly 10 years ago, people here have wondered what’s going to happen to the prized coastal acreage called Marblehead.

They’re going to have to wait a little longer to see what will become of the erstwhile library site and the clay and sandstone bluffs that surround it.

San Clemente city officials now say the latest version of the 250-acre Marblehead Coastal residential and commercial project, unveiled by the Irvine-based Lusk Holding Co. in February, is stalled yet again.

One of the project’s key pieces, a 62-acre regional commercial center next to Interstate 5, is being restudied, partly because another center called Plaza Pacifica is being built about two miles away.

“I think they have gone back to the drawing board to a certain extent,” Mayor Steve Apodaca said. “We have to make certain that we are not setting up competing centers and one is going to win and one is going to fail. This is a very important project for this city.”

Part of the reason for the long wait on Marblehead Coastal is its complexity, City Manager Michael W. Parness said.

Before Lusk can build 500 ocean-view homes, two commercial centers and bluffside park on the property at the north end of town, the developer must negotiate a general plan amendment and zoning changes, and help design an $18-million freeway offramp and perhaps another roadway linking the project to Coast Highway, Parness said.

Then the project will have to undergo the scrutiny of the California Coastal Commission.

“[Lusk] is still committed to the project and will be moving forward, but the delay is probably good for us too,” Parness said. “We want to make sure we do this right.”

At the moment, the city is concentrating on Marblehead’s proposed 750,000-square-foot commercial center, which is planned for the northeast portion of the parcel near Avenida Pico, city officials said.

The center’s ultimate success will be its regional appeal to consumers, much like that of Costa Mesa-based Ramser Co.’s Plaza Pacifica, which is also on Avenida Pico and is now being graded, said David N. Lund, San Clemente’s director of economic development.

From the city’s perspective, the center also will have to fit in with the other commercial properties along El Camino Real and Avenida del Mar, Lund said.

“We made it clear to Lusk we want to fully evaluate from a market perspective just how those particular proposed retail elements can be absorbed in the marketplace in light of our existing retail base, coupled with the retail uses proposed in Plaza Pacifica,” Lund said. “This is going to be a very sensitive project.”

For instance, one of three elements proposed for Marblehead’s commercial center is an entertainment complex including movie theaters. But San Clemente, without an active movie theater for years, now has two other theater complexes in the building stage, a fact that cannot be good for Lusk, Lund said.

“It’s really a matter of timing,” Lund said.

Lusk officials did not return phone calls for comment.

All the complicated planning probably would be moot if President Nixon, whose Western White House was at the southern end of the city, had chosen San Clemente instead of his hometown of Yorba Linda for his library.

Back in 1983, the Richard Nixon Presidential Archives Foundation had proposed an 80,000-square-foot library as a centerpiece for a Lusk project at Marblehead that also included three hotels, 1,500 homes and a commercial center.

City business leaders at the time had predicted the library would bring in between $1 million and $2 million annually to San Clemente in revenue, mostly from tourists.

But the library went north when city officials decided in 1987 the rest of the Lusk plan was too intense for San Clemente’s environmental and planning standards.

The Lusk Co. presented the city yet another plan for the property in 1990 that included a golf course, but that development didn’t take off because the recession ravaged the county’s housing market.

The current project calls for a pedestrian trail along the bluffs above the highway and a trail through Marblehead Canyon connecting the city’s historic North Beach area with the commercial center.

Most of the Marblehead property would consist of canyon- and ocean-view single-family homes with about 30% of the total acreage set aside for open space, city officials said.

The project and the proposed freeway interchange at Vista Hermosa, which will feed into the Marblehead Coastal area, will be among the topics of a neighborhood forum at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, July 24, at St. Andrews by the Sea church.

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Nothing New

Marblehead development plan put on hold.