Center With 20 Theaters Proposed for Garden Grove

A developer is proposing to build an entertainment center featuring up to 20 movie screens, an IMAX theater, theme restaurants and retail stores on an 18-acre parcel at Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue.

If approved by the City Council, Westrust Financial’s 264,000-square-foot center would displace about 175 senior citizens who live at the Oasis Mobile Home Park and are angry over the prospect of being forced out.

Hoping to attract visitors from neighboring Anaheim, where the Walt Disney Co. this week unveiled a $1.4-billion expansion, Garden Grove officials say there is a sense of urgency to move forward with plans.

“We want to beat everybody else to the punch. We want to be there first,” Mayor Bruce A. Broadwater said Wednesday. “Redevelopment agencies from one city to another are in competition for sales tax dollars.”

Councilman Tony Ingegneri added: “In order for developers to view this site as a viable location, it needs to be fast-tracked.”

The proposed site for the entertainment complex is a mile south of Disneyland and half a mile south of the Anaheim Convention Center.

“We’re planning on maximizing Disneyland,” Broadwater said.

The entertainment center is one of several projects city officials have in mind for the stretch of Harbor between Chapman and Garden Grove Boulevard, dubbed the Harbor Corridor Entertainment Center.

Officials envision the stretch, now crowded with coffee shops, motels and fast-food restaurants, as home to hotels and other entertainment venues, essentially extending the tourism industry from Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center into Garden Grove.

On Tuesday, city staff members met with more than 100 senior citizens in the community center of the Oasis Mobile Home Park. A team of relocation consultants hired by the city accompanied staff members to tell seniors what options they have in finding other living arrangements if the project wins city approval.

The residents were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea.

“I don’t want to move,” said Wesley R. Beach, 64. “I’m established here. I’m comfortable. Everybody else seems to be that way too. It would disrupt our whole sense of community.”

David Stadler, a partner in Long Beach-based Pacific Relocation Consultants, said federal redevelopment guidelines require cities to give residents money to buy comparable mobile homes in other parks and pay for moving costs. Most residents in the mobile-home park own their coaches; only a handful lease their homes.

The mobile home park is in the city’s redevelopment area, giving the city the power through eminent domain to force the residents out and take over the property if the entertainment center project is approved.

The city has hired an architect for $70,000 to sketch preliminary plans for a 1,000-space parking structure for the entertainment center. Under the proposal, the city would pay construction of the parking structure and for other work near the site. The developer would pay to build the center.

At this point, it is unclear how much the center and the parking structure would cost.

The City Council has earmarked $220,000 to pay the architect for more specific plans if it votes for the project in September or October.

Garden Grove Community Development Director Matthew Fertal said the city plans to finance its share of the project with $7 million in redevelopment money left from a 1992 street project. The city also has applied for a $14-million community development block grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he said.

If the developer puts up 20 movie screens and the IMAX theater, the facility would rival the Edwards 21 Megaplex at Irvine Spectrum, the county’s largest theater complex.

Ricardo Capretta, managing partner of Calabasas-based Westrust Financial, could not be reached for comment on the project Wednesday.