BREA : Developers to Start on Shopping Center

Construction of a 50-acre commercial and residential project in the downtown redevelopment area will begin within 45 days, project officials announced last week.

The first part will be the 18-acre Gateway Shopping Center.

City Council members voted 3 to 1 last week to allow developers out of a 3-year-old agreement that required them to build on the 5,000-square-foot corner of Brea Boulevard and Birch Street that was supposed to be part of the Gateway Center. Instead, that land now will be part of a business and entertainment center, which is part of the project.

The council’s action dropped the price of the shopping center by $455,000. Developers now will buy Gateway’s land from the city for $4.5 million, city officials said.

The project involves construction of:

* The shopping center, which will include a Ralphs supermarket and Payless drug store on the north side of Imperial Highway west of Brea Boulevard.

* The business and entertainment center on Birch Street.

* About 100 townhouses north of Birch Street and west of Walnut Street.

Construction of the business and entertainment center, which will include an Edwards Cinema, is expected to begin in 1995 while the housing construction will begin this summer, said Susan M. Georgino, director of Redevelopment Services.

She said the project will eliminate the “blighting conditions in the area.”

Project construction was delayed for about three years by legal action from business and property owners unhappy with being forced from the area to make way for the redevelopment project.

Much of the legal wrangling was settled out of court when the city created a relocation plan for displaced businesses. A few property owners, however, still are contesting the purchase price of their properties, which the Brea Redevelopment Agency acquired by eminent domain.

Council member Kathyrn E. Wiser, who cast the vote against allowing developers to change their agreement, said she did so because of those property owners.