Anaheim Starts In With Its Long-Awaited Renewal

After years of planning, Anaheim city officials and the developer who helped revitalize Santa Monica and Old Town Pasadena have broken ground on a $100-million downtown renewal project to attract shoppers, diners and urban dwellers.

To frustrated business owners, the city is finally making good on its pledge to redevelop downtown after knocking down dozens of historic buildings in the 1970s and ‘80s in the name of progress.

“You wait and you wait and you see all the various proposals,” said Joe Honescko, president of the Downtown Anaheim Assn.

“To see it come to fruition with a groundbreaking is extremely exciting. It’s going to give something back that people have been missing for a long time: their downtown.”

The 7-acre Center Street Promenade project, at the heart of the original colony that became Anaheim, is expected to add restaurants, offices and shops as well as 491 residential units -- condos and loft-style apartments. Completion of the project’s first phase is expected next year.

A previously planned library was eliminated because of state budget cuts, and plans for a culinary school fizzled.

Since 1990, several projects -- including City Hall West, the Disney Ice skating and hockey rink and several office buildings -- have been completed downtown.

But none of that provided the “critical mass” that the city’s redevelopment director, Elisa Stipkovich, said is needed to complete a successful downtown renewal. The project, with CIM Group as the contractor, will draw downtown residents to invigorate the area after dark, officials said.

“This will bring the personality back to downtown,” said one downtown business owner, John Machiaverna.

“You can’t just put a business out and continue to survive. You’ve got to have a customer base,” he said. “I think this is finally the real deal.”

Other projects by CIM Group have helped enliven Birch Street in Brea, the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and Old Town Pasadena.

One of CIM’s co-founders, Shaul Kuba, has “an ability to think on a grand scale,” Stipkovich said. “I don’t think he’s ever seen a project that’s too big, and he has the fortitude to make it happen.”

The city redevelopment agency will provide the land and cover the cost of underground parking, for a total contribution of about $13 million. CIM’s investment is about $87 million, Stipkovich said.

In a series of meetings over the past year with downtown activists -- including business owners, residents and preservationists -- project managers were asked to reflect the city’s culture and history. CIM Group and city officials said project architects developed plans to do just that.

“I like it,” said Jerry Zomorodian, owner of a downtown Arco gas station. “I like to see that, finally, this plan and project is going through. I think it will bring a lot of return capital downtown.”