Getting Back to Business

Once it was the hub of South County, the place people went to shop, dine, spend a night on the town. Now, 30 years later, the once-bustling strip of El Toro Road just north of Interstate 5 has been abandoned by merchants and customers alike.

Stop-and-go traffic. Empty storefronts dotting strip mall after strip mall. The Edwards Theatre sign at the entrance of the Saddleback Valley Plaza that once boasted titles of first-run movies is now empty, a faceless marquee at the edge of a near-vacant shopping center.

“El Toro Road is not competitive with the newer shopping centers in south Orange County,� said David Chapman, a real estate analyst with Newport Beach-based Pierpoint Advisors.

But there is a plan--one that city officials say will bring new life to the three-mile commercial corridor stretching from Interstate 5 to Trabuco Road, in the heart of Lake Forest.

The proposal, to be reviewed Thursday by city planning commissioners, includes modern storefront designs, a zoning change and traffic flow improvements. A grant from the Orange County Transportation Authority will allow the city to pour $9.1 million in street and landscaping work into El Toro Road.

It’s a blueprint tailored for a city that wants to put its own mark on an area developed in the 1970s under county rule, almost two decades before Lake Forest’s 1991 incorporation.

The city’s aim: filling the empty storefronts, giving the area a much-needed face lift and luring back residents who jump city borders to dine and shop at the Irvine Spectrum or the Shops at Mission Viejo.

It’s a lofty--but understandable--set of goals for a town surrounded by newer commercial developments, said Hamid Shirvani, Chapman University provost and an architecture and urban design expert.

“We’re living in a postmodern society, particularly in Southern California,� Shirvani said. “Everything is clean, neat, colorful. Many of the newer shopping centers are jazzy, glitzy places. It’s a phenomena that’s happening everywhere, but it’s on a much more grand scale in California.�

Aesthetics is a huge motivating factor, said Kathy Graham, Lake Forest’s community development director. The El Toro strip generates revenue, but it could do better if the city spiffs it up. Right now, it just looks ugly, Graham said. The stores that aren’t empty mostly appear drab and run-down, with outdated designs, chipped paint and old signs.

For starters, the city would like the area to be more pedestrian-friendly. And it needs a better blend of stores, said Chapman, the real estate analyst.

“If you offered a continuous mix of bookstores, jewelry stores, entertainment-oriented shops and restaurants, you’ll find that residents are far more likely to shop there,� Chapman said.

It’s a deficiency resident Jim Richert finds troubling.

“The busiest street in all of Orange County, you’d think it would be the busiest place for business,� Richert said. “There used to be a Red Lobster and a Velvet Turtle. We don’t even have a bookstore--there used to be one at the Saddleback Plaza. There was a pet store and a toy store--they’re all gone now.�

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If ugliness is what’s motivating redevelopment, there may be no worse culprit than an industrial pocket that lies in the outskirts of the El Toro corridor, considered the redevelopment zone. If city staff have their way, the pocket will be rezoned from industrial to commercial.

Here again, the motivation for change is aesthetics. Currently, the area contributes about $400,000 in sales tax revenue to the city’s coffers. That accounts for about 4% of the city’s sales tax revenue. And the city doesn’t expect to get much more than that from the kind of stores they’d like in there.

But for the 66 business and land owners, it is their livelihood.

It’s a scruffy, dusty area off the beaten path, bordered by Jeronimo Road, Cherry Avenue and Front Street. You won’t find any curbs or sidewalks here. But it is surrounded by homes, apartments and the Lake Forest Golf Center--in plain sight of the driving range.

Large trucks from a construction company use the narrow streets for daytime parking. Passersby can peek into the grounds and see mounds of gravel and other materials used for concrete mixing.

Back lots serve as storage for a lumber yard and a building supply store. There are U-Haul and Ryder truck rental lots, a car auction business, a cab company and a handful of auto repair shops that do their work in the open air.

Then there are the code violations. In the last two years, 47% of the area’s businesses have been cited for code violations, Graham said. She can rattle off the infractions: inadequate on-site parking; abandoned vehicles; illegal dumping into the storm drain; poor building and landscape maintenance; graffiti; trash and debris. Some businesses, she said, have been cited more than once and have yet to correct the problems.

If approved, some of those businesses--most of which were around long before Lake Forest became a city--could be replaced by antique shops, convenience stores, salons, bakeries and other neighborhood retail uses, under the city’s redevelopment plan.

That worries Dick Susag, whose South County Auto Body shop has operated at the end of Front Street for 10 years. He fears that the city will begin doling out code violation citations and eventually push him out of business.

“I’ve spent many years building my business, and all of a sudden, they want to kiss me goodbye,� said Susag, who lives in Dana Point. “I figure it would cost me a half a million dollars to reestablish myself somewhere else, and I want to know who’s going to give me the money to do that?�

It’s a plight similar to that of Santa Ana Mayor Miguel A. Pulido, who in the mid-1980s--before taking office--took the city of Santa Ana to task when it threatened to force his family’s Ace Muffler shop to relocate from the spot it had occupied for 25 years. The city wanted to build a shopping center there and had entered into what was described as an ironclad agreement with a developer. The family stood firm, the community rallied behind them and the city finally buckled. The muffler shop was worked into the shopping center’s design plan.

In Lake Forest, it’s not one business but several dozen that are poised to do battle against the city. They’ve formed their own group--the Lake Forest Commercial and Industrial Assn.--to show they are united on the issue. But it won’t be an easy battle.

City officials say some of those businesses just aren’t suitable for a residential area. In the 1920s, the pocket itself was full of homes--it was the El Toro area’s first residential and agricultural development. The streets, sewer and water lines weren’t designed for industrial uses, Graham said.

If the redevelopment plan and zone change wins approval from the Planning Commission and the City Council, officials will work with the businesses that are there now to come into compliance, Graham said. Those that don’t comply but have valid permits with the city, she said, can stay “until the cows come home.� They just won’t be able to expand.

If one of those businesses moved out, it would have to be replaced by one that fits with the new redevelopment guidelines. And that, said Veronica Dickenson, could have a devastating effect on property owners such as herself. She maintains she’d have a hard time finding a Starbucks or a beauty salon willing to move next to an auto auction or a concrete batch plant.

“Who is going to want to do that?� said Dickenson, whose family has owned the property occupied by Ganahl Lumber for more than 20 years. “Nobody’s going to want to move into an area that’s in transition.�

Sue Waltman, another property owner, worries what is now a thriving and bustling area will become blighted, and she’ll end up with a lot of empty ground.

“That’s my retirement,� Waltman said. “I can’t live on it if it’s not bringing in money.�

Instead of changing the area’s zoning, the group would rather the city go after the problem businesses, ones with multiple code violations on their record. The association has hired a consultant to draft design plans that would make the area more aesthetically pleasing and address some of the code enforcement concerns the city has raised.

Some council members said they would like to separate the area from the larger redevelopment plan, so as not to hold up improvements along El Toro Road.

“I recognize that area has some uses that need to be corrected or monitored or deleted, but I can’t see thrusting ahead with the plan and leaving them with their contentions,� Mayor Kathryn McCullough said. “Let’s take some time to get them on board while we put the rest of the plan to work.�

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In the long run, however, the El Toro Road strip plays a role in the city’s vision for Lake Forest’s commercial district. They want it to look nice, be functional and fit a model--one that divides the strip into three very specific commercial areas.

Imagine three concentric circles. The first and biggest circle envelopes the area closest to Interstate 5 and would be home to big-box retailers such as Kmart, which is in negotiations with the city to reopen its El Toro Road store, or Home Depot--places that will draw people from surrounding communities. The second circle includes restaurants, movie theaters and other entertainment-related businesses that will draw residents from the surrounding 10 miles. The third and smallest circle, which is where the industrial area falls, includes supermarkets, drug stores, art supply stores, and lube-and-tune auto shops--places that people in the immediate neighborhood would go “two or three times a week,� Graham said.

It’s a model used in a number of cities. Crown Valley Parkway in Mission Viejo is one example. But the key to success in Lake Forest will be eliminating the bottleneck of traffic along El Toro Road, said Jim Clarkson of Newport Beach-based Strategic Retail Advisors.

“El Toro Road was at one point the retail capital of south Orange County,� Clarkson said. “But I think what has happened is that through the years, the city has put in so many traffic signals that it seems like you have to stop your car every 100 yards, and psychologically, people want to avoid going down that road.�

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Rebuilding Lake Forest’s ‘Hub’

City officials are proposing to rezone an industrial area, saying it would help turn Lake Forest back into a commercial hub. Existing tenants in the parcel say rezoning would put them out of business.