Plans Approved for Long-Sought City Anchor : Cerritos Triggers Towne Center Project

CERRITOS —  For years, it was a rough concept, a hope of sorts, to build a real downtown in this city of houses and parks. The idea had been on the books since the early 1970s, when Cerritos was emerging from its rural past and drawing up plans for the future.

The future arrived last week when the City Council unanimously approved the specifics of a proposed $145-million hotel and office building development on a triangular piece of city-owned land across from city hall. It will be the largest construction project in the city’s 30-year history and is considered by many to be the crowning touch to Cerritos’ transformation from dairy town to model suburban community.

If all goes as planned, Torrance-based Transpacific Development Co. will lease the land and build a 400-room luxury hotel, several restaurants and a series of office buildings with more than 1 million square feet of space. The development will spread across 57 acres of what is known as the “Golden Triangle,” formed by Bloomfield Avenue, 183rd Street and the Artesia Freeway.

The city is gambling that the project will indeed be golden, generating $102 million in income for the city during the first 20 years of operation, and nearly $585 million by the year 2045. It is also expected to create 4,420 jobs.

‘Highest Quality’

“It will be the highest quality project this side of Century City,” Councilman Barry Rabbitt said. “It will secure this city’s future into the next century.”

Peter H. Adams, senior vice president of Transpacific, believes it will do something else. It “will give Cerritos what it has been missing--a real downtown, a focal point for the city.”

Cerritos, once known as Dairy Valley because there were more cows than people, developed without a real downtown. Today, Los Cerritos Center and the nearby restaurants and strip development on the city’s west side is the closest Cerritos comes to a downtown. But some, like Rabbitt, believe that the Towne Center would be a development unique to Cerritos and quickly regarded by residents as the center of town.

When the city’s General Plan was drawn up in 1972, it called for a large commercial and retail development on the 125-acre Towne Center site. But at the time, the plot was privately owned. In 1982, the city purchased the entire parcel for $38.6 million and a year ago two firms, Transpacific and General Growth of California, were selected to develop it. General Growth was hired to build an upscale shopping mall on the site, but so far the firm has been unable to package the right mix of stores to satisfy the council.

First-Phase Ground Breaking

Transpacific’s end of the deal has gone much smoother. In March, the city and Transpacific reached an agreement to build the hotel and office buildings. Wednesday night the council cleared the way for ground breaking next summer on the first phase--a hotel and an seven-story office building--by approving the blueprints for the project. The eight-story hotel with its 400 rooms will be built in stages, with construction of the first 200 rooms beginning by summer. Completion of the office building is expected by mid-1988, with the hotel set to open in early 1989. Construction of the second phase, two more office buildings--one seven stories the other six--will begin in late 1988.

The council has been criticized for agreeing to give Transpacific a $5-million, interest-free loan to help build the hotel, and then agreeing to give the company a $750,000-a-year subsidy until the hotel begins to turn a profit. City officials predict that the hotel will turn the corner financially within five years.

Construction of the entire $145-million undertaking will continue into the mid-1990s. The exterior of most buildings will be a mixture of glass and beige granite. The shorter one- and two-story buildings will be clustered along Bloomfield and 183rd Street, with the taller structures near the hotel in the center of the site.

Next to the hotel, the city plans to start building a $17.5-million, 1,800-seat community center in mid-1988 for graduations, concerts and plays.

Beginning in summer, the city will also spend $7 million extending Shoemaker Avenue, on the project’s east side, over the Artesia Freeway. As part of the overpass construction, on- and off-ramps to the eastbound lanes of the freeway will be built to provide greater access to the development.

Night Called Historic

On a night some in City Hall were calling historic, several residents complained that the development may bring more than dollars to Cerritos. Richard L. Taylor, a commercial artist who ran unsuccessfully for council last spring, said the project is too “grandiose” for a bedroom community. Others warned that it will generate too much traffic, noise and pollution. One homeowner asked that the project be put to a citywide vote.

But City Atty. J. Kenneth Brown said it is too late to put the issue on the ballot because the city has already signed an agreement with Transpacific. Any attempt to deviate or withdraw from that pact, he said, would be a breach of contract. Moreover, council members said they oppose a citywide vote on the project because they were elected to set policy and make decisions on projects like the Towne Center.

Until Wednesday night, there had been virtually no public opposition to the project, although Councilwoman Ann B. Joynt questioned the scope of the development during her council campaign last spring. She again expressed concern about filling the office buildings planned for the project.

“Right next door in Orange County there is a 50% vacancy rate in office buildings,” Joynt said. “So I’m not yet convinced we are going to be able to fill” the Towne Center buildings.

Despite her concerns, Joynt voted for the development and at the same time delivered some advice to those now criticizing the project. “All I can say to those people is, where have they been all those years when the city has been talking about this?” she said. “It is an idea that has been around for a long, long time.”