For nearly 40 years, Sears sold and delivered highly affordable, build-it-yourself new home kits throughout the U.S.; this past Saturday, owners and developers of what used to be the Sears outlet at La Cumbre Plaza held a morning open house for their proposal to build 443 new units of rental housing.
Although the developers — Kennedy Wilson — notified everyone within 1,000 feet of the property, public turnout was more a trickle than a flood. By contrast, the open house held a year ago by the development team proposing 642 units of housing by the Macy’s site also at La Cumbre Mall drew crowds that lined up around the block at the Grace Fisher Foundation. That was the first big housing project out the gate at that site, and the meeting was held on a weekday night.
Although La Cumbre Plaza is now slated for two major housing development projects — a total of 1,075 units — two separate ownership and development teams are involved, and the design of the two differ. The Sears project, for example, will not encroach on the city’s 60-foot height limit, whereas the Macy’s project would exceed it by 16 feet. In addition, 10 percent of the units at the Sears site would be leased at middle-income, below-market rates; only 8 percent of the units at the Macy’s site would be below-market.
Both applications have now been deemed complete and are ready for environmental review. It remains to be seen whether the two development teams will join forces for a shared environmental report. La Cumbre Plaza was designated in city planning documents as the ideal receptor site for the largest number of housing units within city limits, though traffic congestion and school attendance issues remain very much alive.
Meanwhile, negotiations continue between City Hall and the AB Investment over plans to replace much of downtown’s Paseo Nuevo mall with housing units. A public discussion of the state of negotiations is tentatively slated for March; the developers have reportedly reduced the number of housing units proposed from the 500 previously mentioned. Likewise, they have indicated an interest in redeveloping more of the existing space for retail and commercial. Still unresolved is what kind of financial contribution City Hall — which, as property owner of Paseo Nuevo, has already committed to providing the land — would have to make.
