Contract for Convention Center Inked

A $22.2-million contract was awarded this week to M.A. Mortenson Co. of Los Angeles to build the first phase of the Anaheim Convention Center expansion.

The $150-million project, expected to get underway in August, will increase the Convention Center’s size to 1.4 million square feet by the year 2000. Completion of the first phase is scheduled for May 1998.

New exhibit space, meeting rooms and lobby and registration areas are planned, making it one of the 10 largest convention centers in the country.

Mayor Tom Daly said the expansion project is “important to the economy of Anaheim and Orange County.”

Mortenson Co. was the low bidder. The contract for the second phase is expected to be awarded in November.

In other matters, the council voted against taking eminent domain action against Brookhurst Motor Inc., the tenant of the property at 806 N. Brookhurst St.

The owner of the property, city officials said, plans to sell the 2-acre site to Home Depot for a new store.

The eminent domain action would have overridden the lease held by Yong Ung Kim, owner of the towing, automobile body and paint business, and required him to move. It also would have required the city to help pay Kim’s relocation costs.

Daly, who cast the only vote in favor of the move, said it was needed to revitalize the area.

Attorney Barry A. Ross, representing Kim, argued that forced relocation could be devastating to the profitable business.

“You may destroy one business . . . in order to give a business advantage to another business,” Ross said. “This is not an appropriate use of the redevelopment powers.”

Home Depot has a store on nearby Lincoln Avenue but wants to build a 105,000-square-foot store with a 25,000-square-foot garden center on the northeast corner of Brookhurst and Gramercy Avenue.

A redevelopment agency official on Wednesday said the city is working with Kim to save the Home Depot project.