California Apparel News

There’s going to be a yearlong wait until anything can happen with The Waterfront, a $300 million renovation of the pier area in Redondo Beach, Calif.

Recently, the Redondo Beach City Council voted to take another swing at the environmental impact report for the Waterfront project, which was originally slated to bring unique boutique retail, a farmers-style market and upscale restaurants to what many local businesspeople consider a rundown waterfront, 21 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles.

The area is surrounded by well-off beach cities in Los Angeles’ South Bay, where the median income is $90,000 annually, according to the project’s developer, CenterCal Properties, headquartered in El Segundo, Calif.

For the upcoming EIR process, Redondo Beach’s planners and politicians will have to consider alternatives to the current plan, which range from a no-growth option where the waterfront remains the same to lower-density growth. The new EIR is scheduled to be completed in late 2015, and, if approved, construction could start in 2016, said Mickey Marraffino, CenterCal’s vice president of marketing.

Redevelopment of the pier has been an issue for the seaside city’s chamber-of-commerce crowd for decades, but plans for development gained momentum in 2012 when CenterCal was awarded a contract to develop the waterfront area, whose history goes back more than 100 years.

“It will be different from a traditional mall,” Marraffino said. “The best feature will be the Pacific Ocean. The entire project is along the waterfront.”

Originally proposed for the development: a luxury cinema with a restaurant, a new public boardwalk with unique retail proposed for the project, park space, as well as new paths for bicyclists and pedestrians. A high-end boutique hotel, called Shade Redondo Beach will be developed by the Zislis Group, in a separate project about one-quarter mile away from the Waterfront.

A representative for the company said that the hotel project is going forward and will open at 655 N. Harbor Dr. in Redondo Beach in mid-to-late 2015. (Zislis Group also runs a Shade hotel in neighboring Manhattan Beach.)

To develop this Waterfront area, CenterCal must demolish 221,347 square feet of existing structures and build 289,906 square feet of new developments, according to the Redondo Beach planning department’s description of the project.

Redondo Beach also will be in store for more major changes. AES California, a power provider and an electrical-plant operator, said it is in a position to close its more than 60-year-old power plant neighboring The Waterfront project. AES has constructed smaller, more-efficient plants nearby, according to the company’s website. There has been talk about turning AES’ 10 acres into a multi-use development of residences, open space and shops called Harbor Village. However, the Redondo Beach City Council voted to put the Harbor Village plan up for a much wider vote and recently approved a measure to put the plan on the March 2015 municipal ballot. Redondo Beach voters will get a final say on what to do with the land.

Locals divided

Critics of the Waterfront and Harbor Village projects, such as Redondo Beach City Councilmember Bill Brand, believe the original proposals were not reviewed closely enough by Redondo Beach residents and will bring more traffic to an already congested city.

Businesspeople in Redondo Beach generally seem to think The Waterfront project will benefit the area’s economy. “It’s the perfect undeveloped place,” said Lisa Zagha, owner of the Lisa Z fashion boutique, located a mile away from the development in the Riviera Village boutique district. “The pier is broken down.” She forecasts the development will attract Redondo Beach residents to spend more dollars in their hometown and bring more tourists to the area. In turn, the tourists will spend more in places such as Riviera Village.

Muhammed El-Hasan is the co-owner of Beach Bowls Açai Café restaurant, a Redondo Beach resident and former business editor of the Daily Breeze newspaper.

“As a resident, it’s a headache,” he said of traffic. “But as a businessman, it’s a blessing. If they stop this plan, another plan will come up. It’s an uncut, unpolished diamond,” he said of the waterfront area.