Make-Over Planned for Plaza Pasadena

Hailing it as an urban village that will extend the synergy of Old Pasadena along Colorado Boulevard, the Pasadena City Council has approved a $135-million open-air development to replace the city’s white-elephant mall.

The proposed Paseo Colorado development is intended to resemble a European piazza and will feature a gourmet grocery store, a multiscreen movie complex, a health club and 400 luxury apartments atop eateries and trendy shops.

City officials hope it will reshape the Civic Center and connect the buzzing night life of Old Pasadena with the city’s playhouse district to the east.

“This is a milestone for Pasadena,” Mayor Bill Bogaard said after the council voted unanimous approval for the project near midnight Monday. “This is new urbanism. A place where you can shop and live . . . without using an automobile.”

The new development by Trizec-Hahn Corp. will replace the existing Plaza Pasadena, an enclosed mall built in 1980 on Colorado Boulevard between Los Robles and Marengo avenues.

In recent years, the mall has fallen out of favor and been abandoned by many high-profile retailers and customers. Critics say its claustrophobic design--underground parking and inside shop entrances--has deadened pedestrian life, creating a “hole in the doughnut” between the bustling Old Pasadena district to the west and the city’s playhouse district.

Paseo Colorado, they contend, will change all that by turning the old mall inside out and guaranteeing around-the-clock pedestrian traffic from its permanent residents.

The plan also calls for removing a slice of the current mall that now blocks the Civic Auditorium from City Hall and the library--all three elegant Mediterranean structures.

The new project will come at a price to taxpayers. The city has agreed to kick in $26 million in bond money to buy out developer TrizecHahn Corp. from its lease on city-owned garages at the current mall.

City officials say they will recoup the tax money from parking revenues generated within the first seven years after the Paseo project is opened in 2001.

“The investment is a prudent one,” Councilman Steve Madison told his colleagues.

Without the money, Trizec-Hahn officials say, the firm couldn’t afford the elaborate Mediterranean village design for the “de-malling” that came out of more than a year of work by a mayor’s task force.

“It has really been a collaboration between the developer and the community,” said Richard Froese Jr. a TrizecHahn vice president.

The Paseo is part of a growing movement away from the enormous, coffin-like malls of the 1970s to pedestrian streetscapes.

“We see ourselves as a mixed-use urban village,” Froese said. “We take our cues from Old Pasadena.”

Business leaders praised the Paseo project at Monday’s council meeting.

“This is the crown jewel of Pasadena’s developments,” said Roger Smith, executive director of the Pasadena Convention Center and Visitors Bureau.

With all new stores apart from the existing Macy’s, city officials estimate that Paseo will create 1,700 jobs and eventually kick $1.5 million extra into city coffers through sales and property taxes. The council vote Monday cleared the way for the project by approving its environmental impact report, a financial agreement, and changes to the city’s general plan and area-specific plan needed to accommodate construction. Councilman Paul Little recused himself from the votes and three-hour hearing because he is employed by the nearby Pacific Asian Museum.

A few potential stumbling blocks remain, however. The project’s design must be approved by the city, and TrizecHahn needs to buy out a mortgage holder on the Plaza. There also could be a legal challenge to the city’s financial involvement or its environmental analysis.

But the project has won over the city’s powerful preservation lobby. Said Sue Mossman, executive director of Pasadena Heritage: “There is a lot to recommend this development. It is a huge project to revitalize the civic center and bring people back to our downtown.”

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Pasadena’s ‘Urban Village’

The Paseo Colorado is a $135 million project to replace the Plaza Pasadena mall with an open-air urban village that allows pedestrian access between the Civic Auditorium and City Hall.