Costa Mesa Project Aims to Put Bean Fields in Past
The 93 acres of lima bean fields are one of the last reminders of Orange County’s agricultural past. Soon, they may give way to its future: shops and office space.
The Costa Mesa City Council later this month will take up the fate of the so-called Home Ranch, the last undeveloped parcel in the city owned by the Segerstrom family, which has been responsible for developing much of the area’s skyline.
The property is bounded by Sunflower Avenue, the San Diego Freeway, Fairview Road and Harbor Boulevard.
“You see the bean fields still. For me, it reminds me of when I was a girl when we had a bean field at the end of the street,” said Sandy Genis, a former Costa Mesa mayor who has long opposed development of the Home Ranch. “No one expected this to remain agricultural indefinitely. But it does show the direction we are taking. We are what they call an edge city--suburbs that have become commercial and job centers.”
In this latest proposal to build on the land, the developer, C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, envisions a 300,000-square-foot Ikea store that will be the chain’s West Coast flagship. Another well-known company, which has not been publicly identified, is expected to occupy office space. There will be only limited additional retail--a dry cleaners, a travel agency--designed mainly to serve the offices.
The City Council will conduct the first of two public hearings on the proposal Oct. 15. The Planning Commission has already signed off on the project.
Don Collins, Ikea project manager, said that if the council gives its approval by the end of the year, the store could be open by Christmas 2002. The store, which will have 411 employees, will replace the one in Tustin.
Ikea will buy part of the Segerstrom property for an amount that neither party would disclose.
Though city officials and residents squawked and sued over previous proposals to develop high-rises on the property, the latest plan garnered more support because it was less dense and has no high-rises.
The property was dubbed Home Ranch because it was where the Segerstrom family settled in 1915; they continued to hold family meetings in the original ranch house until the 1960s. That building--at Fairview Road and South Coast Drive--now is used as Segerstrom office space. It will not be affected by the development.
The family--one of the region’s best-known developers of high-end retail projects--also built South Coast Plaza, the Orange County Performing Arts Center, the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel, South Coast Repertory and several office buildings.
Planning Commission Vice Chairman Bruce Garlich went on record as opposing part of the plan because he wants to reduce the project’s forecast traffic trips by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000.
Nonetheless, Garlich supports the project as a whole.
“All of us [on the Planning Commission] were pretty much for the project,” he said. “What they have proposed is appropriate. The previous proposals were too big. This isn’t.”
“I’m very pleased that the [Planning] Commission voted so strongly in support of this project,” said Paul Freeman, spokesman for C.J. Segerstrom & Sons. “It reflects how hard we have worked to respond to all the issues raised by the community.”
The Segerstroms have been trying to get a development plan approved for the land since the 1980s. All of them have met with disapproval from nearby residents and elected officials. One offered in 1999 was withdrawn before it even came before the Planning Commission.
This time, to sweeten the pot, Segerstrom offered several incentives to the city. The developer will provide community benefits, including a $2-million endowment for three high schools. Segerstrom will pay $8.46 million in traffic improvements, including the widening of the Fairview Street bridge over the San Diego Freeway; $3.5 million for a Susan Street offramp from the freeway; a $500,000 contribution toward the construction of a nearby firehouse; and 30,000 square feet of land to build it on.
Even so, neighborhood activist Robin Lefler opposed the plan.
“It’s the traffic generation that’s scary,” she said. “I think there’s no amount of benefit or money that really makes up for the traffic and air quality impacts on the neighborhood.
“We’re losing our neighborhood character of a less crowded, less urban city. This makes it a much more congested area.”
Planning Commission Chairman Katrina Foley said she believes that the new plan, with its reduced density and traffic-relief measures, has been carefully reviewed by her commission and city staff.
Mayor Libby Cowan said the Planning Commission’s votes, most of which were unanimous, “make a powerful statement.”
The project “lends to a debate or discussion,” she added. But “the opposition has not gotten the momentum from the community. . . . There are many concerns, but from my reading so far, they have been mitigated.”
Even so, what the council will do is anyone’s guess, Foley said.
Unlike many city councils, Costa Mesa’s “leaves people hanging on the edges of their seats,” she said. “You can’t predict anything.”
