Category: Downtown Fullerton

Downtown Fullerton is characterized by bars, dance clubs, restaurants, specialty stores and coffee shops. But mostly bars and dance clubs.

Posted onChris Norby

Fullerton’s City Lights – FUBAR From the Word Go – Part I

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We're From The Fullerton RDA And We're Here to Help!
We're From The Fullerton RDA And We're Here to Help!

Damn. Another Fullerton Redevelopment Agency saga of screw up. This one is a bit long and I bring it to you Dear Friends of Fullerton in serial form.

Way, way back in the early 90s the Redevelopment Agency was still trying to figure out how to buy down the ever-increasing affordable housing set-aside monies it had illegally accumulated over the years, and which a lawsuit had forced it into spending. One type of project that was acquiring some cachet at the time was the SRO – Single Room Occupancy – a long term hotel-type rental for people in fairly marginal economic circumstances. The County had pledged a million bucks of its own to sweeten the deal.

The City solicited proposals. One came from the Bushala family for a site they already owned at Harbor and Truslow. Their partners were to be Baronne-Galasso who had done numerous similar efforts in San Diego, and their architect, the well-published Rob Quigley. http://www.robquigley.com/

The City entertained a second proposal from a gent named Caleb Nelson who seemed to be living out of his truck, along with the very silent “San Gabriel Partners” whom the public never saw. The City staff went so far as to select a site for Mr. Nelson since he owned nothing and couldn’t find City Hall without a map. Unfortunately, the chosen site on Commonwealth Avenue, included the historic Grimshaw House, a Victorian stick-style house c. 1894 that had mysteriously been left out of the 1979 historic survey – maybe because a block building then housing a thrift store had been plunked down in front of it and it was easier just to ignore.

The Grimshaw House, c. 1894, formerly on Commonwealth Avenue
The Grimshaw House, c. 1894, formerly on Commonwealth Avenue

For reasons too complicated to explain here, there was no way the City staff was going to do business with the Bushalas. Some bad blood there!  So behind the scenes an ambush was orchestrated by a couple of city council members, senior staff, and an enterprising housing tax-credit entrepreneur, Doug Chaffee, to undermine both the Bushalas as slumlords, and Baronne-Galasso as bankrupts at the final hearing.  On a 4 to 1 vote the SRO project was awarded to Caleb Nelson in the Spring of 1993. An opportunity for forward-looking architecture had been deliberately squandered.

Once the deal was done Redevelopment moved in to vacate the property. The historic Grimshaw House, intentionally put in harm’s way by the City, became an attractive target and was set on fire – twice – by an arsonist.

Oh, well.
Oh, well.

It was finally razed. A rare Nineteenth Century house, the oldest remaining structure in Downtown Fullerton, and connected to one of the early pioneer families of the County was gone – with nothing but sighs of relief from the good folks at the City.

Things Are Going Just Great!
Things Are Going Just Great! Have A Sucker!

Years passed. 1993 rolled into 1994, and 1994 into 1995 with nothing happening on the site. Despite the City’s attempt to portray him as a sound individual, it was becoming increasingly difficult to hide the truth about Mr. Nelson  and what he might be able to build, given the resources at his disposal.

Does It Come With A Balcony?
A Room With A View - And A Balcony

And this where the story gets really interesting…

Read the rest of “Fullerton’s City Lights”: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Epilogue

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Posted onDick Jones

The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Downtown Sidewalk

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If You Turn Sideways You Can Just Squeeze By
Warning: Sidewalk Narrows Ahead!

The twisted narrative of how the Florentine Family’s “Tuscany Club” managed to expropriate a public sidewalk is yet another tale of woe showing how badly our elected officals and their alleged professionals have manged to screw up Downtown Fullerton.

Back in 2003 the Florentines made an agreement with the Redevelopment Agency and City for an “outdoor dining” lease on the Commonwealth Avenue sidewalk at the intersection with Harbor Boulevard (forget for a moment that any outdoor patrons there would have to spend their time looking at the architectural monstrosity across the street).

Now, outdoor dining to you or me would suggest an open air space surrounded with a moveable fence or rope, and with furniture that could be picked up and taken inside. Well, that’s not what it meant to the Florentines who started construction of a foundation and a masonry wall in the public right-of-way! Sure, there were outcries of anger and dismay among the community over this blatant grab of public property, but these seemed to fall on deaf ears and the construction kept going until in the end the whole thing was completely enclosed. A private room addition right there on the public sidewalk!

Many months passed by, but the issue refused to die quietly. Finally, a big hearing was held, ostensibly to explain the situation to an outraged group of citizens. Mr. Florentine proclaimed his innocence – a victim of circumstance! The Director of Development Services, an obviously affronted F. Paul Dudley, stood  up to say how he had been in control the whole time, had done nothing wrong; and that if he had to do it all over again he would do the same thing!

The only problem with this near-tearful oration was that Dudley had no authority to let any one put a building on public property. Only the Agency and Council could do that – after a public hearing. So the building was an encroachment into the public’s right-of-way, and the offending structure should have been immediately removed. Naturally the Fullerton City Council went along with the sham. After all, nobody really expects accountability or responsibility in Fullerton, right?

First You Stake Out Your Turf
First You Stake Out Your Turf. If You Wait Long Enough They May Give It To You!

Sometime later the terms of the lease of were officially (and very quietly) modified, effectively whitewashing the whole sorry mess; but not before some valuable lessons were learned by careful observers about how things work in Fullerton.

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Posted onDon Bankhead

Oh, No! Not Another Horror Story!

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Deception, Incompetence and Damn Proud of It
Deception, Incompetence and Damn Proud of It

Okay, another story of Redevelopment incompetence run amok. Sorry, but it’s like eating potato chips; once you start…

A visit to the City website will reward you with a list of historic buildings, including what they are calling the Landmark Plaza.

The inclusion of this structure (see image above) on the list is obviously meant to be self-congratulatory and take credit for historic preservation. Unfortunately nobody seems able (or willing) to recall what actually happened. So we’ll help out.

In the late 80s a fly-by-night “developer” wanted to remodel this historic building. The Redevelopment Agency decided to help out by giving the guy a third loan. Since the building was listed as historic the Landmark Ordinance required general adherence to the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. These were serially violated when the developer removed the roof and created an outdoor walkway on the second floor, removing the then useless windows in the process. Other character defining features such as a marble stairway were removed as well.

The Agency staff knew all this. In fact before construction started it solicited an opinion from the State Office of Historic Preservation that informed the City that the remodel violated the Standards, would put the building at risk for nomination to the National Register of Historic places, and jeopardize potential tax credits. Yet the City went ahead, approving the work and subsidizing it!

Well, not long afterwards the “developer,” predictably, headed for the tall grass, and the Agency was left holding the bag. Standing in third place, their near-million dollar loan was gone – unless they bought out the folks at the head of the line. Which of course they did. More of our tax dollars at work.

In 1993 after the work was finally done, guess what the City did? They nominated their building for the National Register, turning the process on its head. To their credit the Heritage group of the time opposed this as a reward for deception and incompetent rehabilitation, but the nomination went through with a little political arm twisting.

Soon after the building was sold at a huge loss, but at least returned to the property tax roll.

There are Heritage group brass plaques on this building now, and a spot on the City’s website: a testament to self-delusion, self-congratulation, and abuse of the Fullerton taxpayer.

Well, sure, mistakes were made but hindsight is 20/20!

Our honor roll:

Molly McClanahan

Buck Catlin

Don Bankhead

Dick Ackerman

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Posted onDon Bankhead

The Strange And Terrible Knowlwood Saga

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knowlwood2
A gosh darn barn right here in Downtown Fullerton!

20 years ago the buildings at the SE corner of Harbor and Commonwealth burned down under strange circumstances, including what was left of the Sterns and Goodman store (why do historic structures keep burning down in Fullerton?). Unbeknownst to the good folks of Fullerton, perhaps the worst example of Redevelopment ineptitude was about to begin.

The owner of the property, Pierre Nicholas, proposed to build a bank building on the corner – a suitable use for the 100% corner any reasonable person would have to agree. But not the entrepreneurial geniuses who ran the Redevelopment Agency at the time – Terry Galvin and his boss Hugh Berry. The problem? Banks don’t generate any sales tax revenue and that’s what Redevelopment is all about. At one hearing a defensive Councilmember Buck Catlin exclaimed “they wanted to build a bank” with the same tone of disgust one might mention a whorehouse or an opium den.

And so Friends, the City embarked on a course to acquire a lengthy ground lease to prevent  the owner of a property to  develop it the way he wanted . Nicholas went along. Why not? Income with no effort on his part.

The Redevelopment bureaucrats already had their favored developer lined up – Sanderson/J. Ray (from Irvine!)who, in cahoots with the City, had worked out a deal with Knowlwood Restaurants to occupy a restaurant on the southerly part of the site.

The subsidized Kwowlwood was eventually ground out of the Redevelopment process – a barn shaped object clad in stucco and brick veneer (pictured, above). Yeehaw!

Meanwhile the development of the corner languished as the developer was finding tenants, and presumably a loan, hard to come by during the early 90s recession. The developer did get permission to put parking lot on the corner and just added insult to injury. The 100% corner –  a parking lot!

By 1995 the project was finally moving ahead. The developer proposed a stucco palazzo with a ludicrous dome covered with green glop. But worst of all the entire second floor was a fake! The developer still couldn’t rent it out and decided to do a movie set storefront instead.  Check out this image:

As a Phallic Symbol It Comes Up A Little Short
As a Phallic Symbol It Comes Up A Little Short
The roof is a giant bowl! This is not a joke. Just check out the picture below if you can’t believe it. The City’s heretofore 5 year saga was reduced to this sort of comic charade. Lights were placed on the floor of the area directly behind the windows to make it look like there was real space up there. To top off the irony, the designer of this mess actually got offended by the suggestion that the geraniums in the second floor planters be plastic to save water!
Maybe It Could be Used As A Swimming Pool
Maybe It Could be Used As A Swimming Pool During The Summer
Well, the City Council went along with this fiasco from start to finish with the exception of Chris Norby. And none of them ever did anything to act on their displeasure if they even experienced such an emotion in the first place. They were:

Molly McClanahan (former Councilmember and current NOCCCD Trustee)
Don Bankhead (current Councilmember)
Dick Ackerman (former Councilman, Sate Assemblyman, and State Senator)
Buck Catlin (former Councilmember)

and, lest we forget:

Julie Sa (twice elected former unintelligible Councilmember, current whereabouts unknown)

By the time the building was built and occupied 7 long years had passed – 7 years of lost property tax, and the addition ludicrous new buildings that never should have been built in the first place. For many Redevelopment watchers “Knowlwood” has become synonymous with Redevelopment boondoggles.

Oh well! As Molly McClanahan was once heard to say: hindsight is 20/20! An excellent motto for the Fullerton Redevelopment Agency.
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Posted onDowntown Fullerton

The No Tell (Allen) Hotel – What Goes Around, Comes Around

by 8 Comments on The No Tell (Allen) Hotel – What Goes Around, Comes Around
Gee, Molly. You Didn't Think We Would Remember, Did You?
Gee, Molly. You Didn't Think We Would Remember, Did You?

Almost twenty years ago Fullerton made its first significant foray into the quagmire of affordable housing, acquiring the the Allen Hotel and turning it over to a fellow named Jose Zapeda. Mr. Zapeda’s job was to accept a huge subsidy to “renovate” the original building and build a new addition. Apartments were to be low income.

The total taxpayer payout exceeded one million dollars – a tidy sum, to be sure – over $70,000 per unit, in fact. Cynics claimed that the exorbitant subsidy was just a way to buy down the quickly escalating affordable housing spending requirement of Redevelopment law that the City had ignored for years.

The usual suspects were on board. Perhaps the most comical (and racially charged) comment came from then City councilmember Molly McClanahan who bragged: “we’re giving them one of their own” as if Mr. Zapeda, because he was Mexican American, was more qualified to build and run a low income housing project – inhabited by – Mexicans!  Molly also proclaimed that she liked the simplicity of the proposal, as if a stucco box with flush vinyl windows and stick-on brink lintels over the windows was somehow virtuous.

dsc00256
Allen Hotel - The Once and Present Tenement

The replacement of the original fenestration with plastic windows, and the transom glass with fake leaded lights (grid glued on the back!)  just showed that historic preservation was being used as a pretext for the big subsidy. With the passing of the years it’s truly hard to see how this eyesore has avoided targeting by Redevelopment as blight – since it was blighted from the moment its “designer” put pencil to paper.

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Posted onChris Norby

The Morgan Group Adds Its Indelible Signature to Downtown Fullerton

by 9 Comments on The Morgan Group Adds Its Indelible Signature to Downtown Fullerton

What happened to Whiting Ave.
The monster that swallowed Whiting Ave.

Almost ten years ago the Morgan Group developers contributed this gem to downtown Fullerton’s inventory of beautiful buildings. For some reason Fullerton’s leaders thought the idea of another faux-Renaissance palazzo built of wood studs, stucco, and styrofoam details was just what the doctor ordered.

Well maybe the doctor did order it. Sometime check out the contributions made by partners of the Morgan group to Dick Jones’ 2000 city council campaign. Hmmm.

Well, we got more high-density, crappy architecture,  more traffic on an already deficient intersection, the aesthetic engulfment of the beautiful and historic church next door, etc., etc.

A picture is better than a thousand words
A picture is better than a thousand words

What did The Morgan Group get? Free land, plus a gift of a public street (the 100 E. block of Whiting – an original street from the 1886 town site grid) and who knows what else. Who approved this disgrace? Let’s have a looksee:

Don Bankhead (current Councilmember)

Dick Jones (current Councilmember)

Jan Flory (former Councilmember)

Chris Norby (former Councilmember and current County Supervisor)

Julie Sa (twice elected former unintelligible Councilmember, current whereabouts unknown)

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Posted onDon Bankhead

What Kind of Idiot….

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A Million Dollar View
A Million Dollar View

…would put a bench facing a blank wall six feet away. Oops, forgot – those bars in the blocked up windows are a real attraction. Seriously, has any sober person ever sat on this bench?

By the way, this 90s remuddle of Fullerton’s first Masonic Temple that you see was subsidized by us – the taxpayers of Fullerton – and approved by the Redevelopment Agency “experts” and the city council. Be sure to thank Molly McClanahan and Don Bankhead next time you see them.

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Posted onDowntown Fullerton

Harbor Blvd.: Open for Pedestrians

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Think of all the great people-oriented downtowns in Southern California. Old Town Pasadena and Orange. Westwood Village and San Diego’s Gaslamp section. Visit downtown Santa Monica or cruise PCH through downtown Manhattan Beach or Laguna Beach. Have you been on the main streets Beverly Hills or Balboa Island?

Think of the great people-oriented shopping and entertainment districts. Can you name just ONE that does NOT allow parking, passenger loading, valet service or even handicap access on its main business street?

There is only one: Fullerton.

After nearly a century of easy, convenient parking on Harbor Blvd. (called Spadra until 1960), parking was removed in 1982. The traffic engineers held sway then, and were more concerned about increasing traffic speeds than the survival of downtown businesses.

Now, 25 years later, their mistake needs to be rectified. Let Harbor be Harbor. Let it be a living, breathing people street by restoring access along Harbor Blvd! Let it be like Pasadena’s Colorado Blvd. or many other pedestrian oriented streets in thriving downtowns.

Downtown entrepreneur Sean Francis (Slidebar, Continental Room) has a plan to restore access on Harbor Blvd., between Wilshire and Commonwealth. This plan is supported by hundreds of signatories to a petition requesting a hearing before the Traffic Commission. Designed by KOA Engineering (who has done extensive work for the city) this plan would free up room for parking, loading zones, valet bays and handicap access in front of Harbor Blvd. businesses—while keeping 2 lanes of traffic.

This plan has been bottled up by mid-level City staff so far, but deserves a hearing before the Traffic Commission and City Council. And it deserves support.

Harbor Blvd. Parking Plan

Think if you owned Branagan’s.Your address is 213 N. Harbor, but when new customers find it, they can’t park there, or even stop to unload their kids or elderly grandmother. They must make a right on Amerige, another right into the rear parking lot, then try to find your rear entrance. This would all change with Sean’s plan. Opening Harbor would not add new parking spots, but it would allow room for valet service and passenger unloading. That convenience would mean a lot for business owners and their customers—as well as the general ambience of Harbor Blvd.

“Harbor Blvd.: Open for Pedestrians!”

Let Sean (who’s paying for the design study out his own pocket), your elected officials, your appointed traffic commissioners and the Downtown merchants know that you support restoring parking on Harbor Blvd.

A street is more than just a traffic pipeline. It must also serve the community through which it passes. Let Harbor be the street it once was—the kind of street it is yearning to be again!

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