Monterey Park Shopping Center Due to Rise on Landfill Site

Monterey Park could soon see a shopping center rise on a portion of the city’s notorious landfill, capping 15 years of effort by a wide range of public agencies and private parties.

Target, Home Depot and other high-profile retailers are already committed to move into the planned Monterey Park Towne Plaza, which is to rise on 45 acres fronting the Pomona Freeway at Paramount Boulevard. The site is part of the former Operating Industries Inc. landfill that was active from the late 1940s until 1984. The federal Environmental Protection Agency designated the land among its exceptionally contaminated Superfund sites in 1986.

About 11 of those acres along the north side of the freeway accepted solid waste, while the balance housed various recycling operations, said Kelvin Tainatongo, Monterey Park’s director of economic development.

Specialists will clean the surface of the recycling areas, cap the 11 more-contaminated acres with impermeable materials and install a gas-extraction system. An additional 145 landfill acres south of the freeway probably won’t be developed for at least 35 years because of its more acute contamination.

Big-box discounters Target, Home Depot and Staples have been joined by popular eateries Starbucks and Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in agreements to lease stores in the 550,000-square-foot shopping center.

“There’s huge demand for these stores; the area is very under-served,” said Bryan Ezralow, chief executive of Ezralow Retail Properties in Calabasas. His company will develop the site with the city’s redevelopment agency.

Broker Brad Talt of CB Richard Ellis, who handles leasing at the nearby Montebello Town Square, said the Monterey Park Towne Plaza site boasts “outstanding freeway identity” and a trade area that’s now underserved in several retail categories.” However, access to could be challenging due to freeway and road configurations, Talt said. The development team is planning some road improvements, however.

Although sponsors are confident the project will get underway sometime after July 1, a few final hurdles remain. The formal development agreement and final financial arrangements between the city and Ezralow Retail should be in place by the end of May. The EPA and the U.S. Justice Department must also sign off on the final consent decree executed as part of the cleanup plan.

Greenfield Development Co., a Bellevue, Wash.-based company specializing in dealing with toxins on contaminated real estate, will initially buy the property and quickly finish the cleanup job before turning it over to the Ezralow group and the city. Stores would open in the summer of 2001 if the project remains on schedule.

Tainatongo said the long approval process has also included participation by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is providing more than $7 million in financial assistance; the neighboring city of Montebello; and adjacent property owners Southern California Edison and Caltrans.

Ezralow Retail Properties is the shopping center arm of privately held Ezralow Co., founded by Bryan Ezralow’s father, builder Marshall Ezralow. The company is also redeveloping the enclosed Huntington Beach Mall into an open-air Italian Renaissance village-style shopping and entertainment center.