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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Changes at Pacoima Site Spark Questions

Will the vacuum left when Price Pfister closed its manufacturing operation in Pacoima finally be filled? New owners with a long history of development in Latino neighborhoods and a policy of establishing close ties to the communities where they develop have acquired the 24-acre site at Paxton Street and San Fernando Road. Primestor Development Inc. has begun preliminary discussions with the community and hopes to be ready to break ground on the property within the next 18 months. If it does, the redevelopment will finally restore an eyesore that has plagued the community for more than a decade since Price Pfister was acquired by Black & Decker and most of its operations were relocated to Mexico. But the community is not ready to exhale just yet. Cleanup of the site, contaminated from years of manufacturing, has not yet been completed, and some residents worry that the property will never be truly free of harmful toxins. There is still no master plan for the property, and residents say they are reserving judgment until they know whether the site will once again yield the kinds of good, well-paying jobs that Price Pfister once provided. And Lowe’s, which for several years now has been expressing interest in locating on the site, has chosen a location within the parcel that could impede attempts to bring in other businesses that would boost the local economy. “We’re interested in knowing what types of businesses they’re planning to bring in,” said Edwin Rodriguez, president of the Pacoima Neighborhood Council. ” We have plenty of market stores. They don’t pay well. We have many McDonald’s and Jack in the Box and gas stations. They’re not good paying jobs. Price Pfister had a high level of employees and a high level of salaries. We would like to see a computer assembly line, Lucent technology, Dell computer systems, something like that.” What makes residents wary is not just the minimum wage retail jobs a Lowe’s would offer. Residents say it is difficult to understand the technical aspects of the cleanup and harder still to assess whether the site is being restored to safe levels. Adding to the skepticism, Primestor is the second developer to take control of the site since Black & Decker first sold it to Lincoln Properties. “I went to one meeting about eight months ago and met a group of people that were the buyers, and they were going to be developing it,” said Rodriguez. “Now apparently there’s somebody else that just acquired the property, I won’t be surprised if they are already settling on something without the community input, which, in many cases, that’s the way it is.” Primestor, which has not yet begun its meetings with the community because escrow only just closed on the property, has developed something of a reputation for community outreach that has endeared it to neighborhoods where it has worked before. The Beverly Hills-based company, which will hold a grand opening for Paseo Sepulveda, a retail project it redeveloped in North Hills, next month, even changed the entire design of the Paseo Sepulveda project after soliciting feedback from the community over what it wanted. “They have a good track record with Paseo Sepulveda,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla, whose district includes both the Paseo Sepulveda and the Price Pfister projects. “They lived up to everything they committed to from reaching out to the neighbors for everything from architectural design to who the tenants would be.” Primestor is not responsible for the cleanup of the site that task falls to the entity responsible for the contamination, in this case Price Pfister, and the various government agencies that oversee and monitor the work. City officials say that the soil cleanup is nearly complete and the water cleanup, though it will require continual monitoring even after a new development is built, is moving along. “I think there will be an end sooner rather than later,” said Padilla of the cleanup. “I can’t give you a specific date, but I feel comfortable that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.” What is of more concern to Padilla is getting a site plan that will allow for the construction of several different types of businesses and make maximum use of the economic development potential of the site. Although no final deal had been reached, Lowe’s had staked out a position on the property with the former owners that limited the opportunities to develop the rest of the site. “I wanted a master plan for the entire site, not a piece by piece development,” said Padilla. “And I was never able to get a site plan from Lincoln. I’ve been disappointed with Lowe’s lack of flexibility on the configuration and the location of their store on the greater property.” Primestor officials say they are hopeful that Lowe’s will be more flexible. In the meantime they are beginning their community outreach. “I do not have a site plan yet because we want to hear from the community, what they would like to see and what they would not like to see,” said Arturo Sneider, vice president of Primestor and a co-owner with his brother-in-law. Sneider has begun thinking about a name for the development, something that harkens back to the area’s roots. But most important, he said, is the development itself, and fashioning a project that meets the community’s needs. “It’s a community that needs a lot of different facilities and services,” Sneider said. “I think that’s one of the things that catches our eye the most. It’s a project that can have a significant positive impact on the community, and a community that wants to have some hope built into their future.”

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