The tallest building in La Mesa history would anchor a leafy residential and retail/office complex in the city’s quaint downtown, under plans percolating since 2008. But the latest drawings now call for the high-rise to reach nine stories instead of the initially envisioned 18.
Park Station at the Crossroads of La Mesa, as it’s formally known, would transform 4 1/2 acres now home to used-car lots. The property north of police headquarters is mostly owned by the Kitzman family. On Jan. 9, project managers filed detailed maps, technical studies and a 77-page wish list known as the Park Station Specific Plan.
The signature element — a controversial 190-foot tower — has been downsized to a 110-foot building.
Lenette Hewitt, a spokeswoman for Urban Housing Partners, the project overseer, explained why.
“All of the public outreach over the last five years — including presentation dinners, surveys meeting with residents, etc. — was the reason for the height reduction,” Hewitt said. “We heard that people were very excited about the project and the new dining and shopping opportunities, but that some of the people felt the height of the tower seemed out of place for La Mesa; therefore it has been reduced from 18 stories to nine stories.”
The specific plan, which City Hall plans to post online, will be followed before the end of January by a draft environmental impact report and a 45-day public comment period, say city officials and Urban Housing Partners. After responses are filed to comments, public hearings will be held by the city Planning Commission and then the council.
If Park Station wins approval, Hewitt said via email, “We are hoping to break ground in two years. Build out could be anywhere from five to seven years.”
But the 60-year-old American Legion building, which sits on a corner of the Park Station Specific Plan, remains a hurdle for developers.
American Legion Post 282’s house manager is Lenny Guccione. “We have no intention of moving,” he said. “They’re more than (welcome) to build around us. We’d appreciate it, too. If they can improve the property, that would be great.”
Guccione lauded plans for trees and shrubs along the trolley tracks and the one-way frontage road called Nebo Drive.
Nebo, once seen as a Park Station urban park, was dropped from the plans, however.
“The underlying ownership became too complicated and held up the project for a long period of time,” Hewitt said. “With part city ownership and part private land owners, there was no way to ultimately take control of this land to include it in the project, so it will remain a street but will be enhanced.”
A longtime holdup for Park Station was the traffic study element of the draft EIR (now being prepared for the city by Encinitas-based Dudek). After at least five revisions, sought by city planners, that element is now satisfactory, say city officials. City Hall’s work on the project included a December, 2009, “public scoping meeting” of 55 residents.
The project is bounded by University Avenue on the south, Baltimore Drive on the west and El Cajon Boulevard on the north and would feature as many as 416 housing units along with 146,000 square feet of commercial office space and 61,000 square feet for shops. A parking garage would be undergrounded.
South Baltimore LLC, the entity behind the project, has paid the city $50,000 to defray staff expenses on the project.
But Bill Chopyk, the city’s community development director, declined to speculate whether Park Station would be an issue in the November 2014 mayoral and council races.
Chopyk pledged “an objective, professional recommendation” on whether to approve, reject or seek changes in the project.
“The staff doesn’t have a dog in this fight,” he said.
