MENIFEE: Council moves closer to Town Center approval

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The following article by Jim Rothgeb was borrowed from The Californian and published Wednesday, January 19, 2011 6:25 pm.

Certain elements of a plan to build downtown Menifee were approved this week, but before the City Council signs off on the whole project its members want a fresh set of trained eyes to look at the developer's proposal.

Those eyes belong to a new city manager who has yet to be named and yet to be officially signed on with the city.

Over the next 15 to 20 years, Regent Properties of Los Angeles wants to build a downtown core in several phases that would include commercial, residential and mixed-use property. The project, dubbed Town Center, features single-family homes, apartment buildings, shops, restaurants, a theater, a hotel, a 6-acre park, youth soccer fields and possibly a courthouse and city hall or community center.

It's a huge project and the City Council wants to take it slowly.

"I'm not opposed to the project but I do want to be careful," Mayor Wallace Edgerton said at the council meeting Tuesday night.

The council approved an amendment to the General Plan and the elements of an environmental report for the project. But it postponed a vote on an ordinance that would authorize the development agreement between the city and Regent Properties.

Edgerton said in a telephone interview more than a week ago that the city had reached an agreement in principle with a new city manager but the hiring contract still isn't finalized. The council was supposed to have discussed that contract in open session Tuesday, but the item was taken off the agenda.

So while the new city manager still hasn't assumed the post, his in-box is filling up. The council has given him until March 15 to examine the Town Center proposal and make any recommendations.

Edgerton said the man the council is working to hire to run the city has a background that includes development and redevelopment projects.

"I've had correspondence ... to make sure he is in concert with the full council about what's being offered to him and that appears to be the case," Edgerton said. "He brought the Town Center up to me and basically was not opposed to the project. But since this is going to have a major imprint on what he's going to be responsible for, he asked that if there was any way, he'd like to be a participant in developing it."

After the meeting, Regent Chief Executive Jeff Dinkin said he is grateful for what the council approved and was OK with the delay on the development agreement.

"I'm pleased with their decision and looking forward to working with the city in the future," Dinkin said.

Since the Town Center plan was introduced to the council on Jan. 4, Councilmen Tom Fuhrman and Fred Twyman have met with Regent officials twice and the company has made some concessions.

Dinkin said the maximum residential units for the project has been reduced from 1,400 to 1,052, plus an additional 119 units if a school is eventually built at the south end of the project. But if there are no significant gains in the economy in the next five years, those numbers may be adjusted, a report to the council states.

Regent also has agreed there would be no homes built in a section of the project at the intersection of Haun and Newport roads and no homes would be built within 900 feet along Newport.

At the urging of Fuhrman, the concessions also include paying $500,000 for the construction of temporary soccer fields on 6 acres set aside for the future city hall or community center.

Fuhrman said three fields could easily be built there and could be used for at least 15 years. That change also would eliminate the construction of under-sized youth soccer fields in the Paloma Wash, as originally proposed.

"We could have those fields a long time because we don't know how long it will take to build a new city hall," Fuhrman said. "It took Temecula 21 years."

Dinkin said the company would like to break ground this spring and start making improvements to Sherman Road, which will run through the heart of the project. He said a medical office building is planned for the property and he's had inquiries about other buildings.

Regent still is working with the California state court system to build a new Riverside County courthouse in Town Center. The Administrative Office of Courts is considering either Menifee or Hemet as a site for the courthouse, which is projected to cost $118 million to build.

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