Big Costa Mesa Office Complex on Agenda : Segerstrom Plan for 500-Foot Tower Meets Resistance From Residents

A controversial office complex and 32-story skyscraper, which could alter Costa Mesa’s physical and political landscape for years to come, will be considered by the City Council tonight.

The battle over One South Coast Place, the focal point of C. J. Segerstrom & Sons’ plan to develop a nearly 100-acre commercial site on the north side of the San Diego Freeway, has pitted residents who want to maintain their city’s quiet, suburban quality against the powerful Segerstrom family in its attempt to develop the last section of its once sprawling farm holdings in the city.

The tower--whose special features include a $700,000 day-care center, an art gallery and 15 acres of open space--would rise 500 feet and be almost twice the height of the county’s tallest building, the 285-foot Center Tower next to the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

In addition to the tower’s day-care center and gallery, Segerstrom officials say, the park-like design of One South Coast Place would make it a unique public resource unlike ordinary commercial developments.

“The area will be a restful haven for people . . . a pleasant place for strolling, jogging or enjoying lunch,” reads one of the company’s brochures. Moreover, company officials expect One South Coast Place to draw successful Orange County companies, boosting the city’s tax base.

Despite the many advantages of the project, many local residents are not swayed.

“Our board members feel the building height is not compatible with our residential neighborhood and that the generation of traffic cannot be mitigated,” said Dave Leighton, president of the North Costa Mesa Homeowners Assn.

“This is really just too much for the city,” he added. “The Segerstroms have done some really nice things for the community, but it’s not that way anymore.”

In the final weeks leading up to tonight’s vote, both the Segerstrom Co. and local homeowners have been waging a heated--and for Segerstrom a costly--campaign to garner support. To combat a Feb. 11 newsletter by Mesa Action, a local grass-roots political action committee that is opposed to the project, Segerstrom hired Solem / Loeb & Associates, a seasoned political consulting firm from San Francisco, to design a 9,000-piece mailer and brochure as well as five newspaper ads.

“We felt that we wanted to reach everybody that lives here,” said Segerstrom’s director of planning and design, Malcolm Ross, referring to the series of five large ads that ran in The Times, the Orange County Register and the Daily Pilot last Thursday. “The ads are for the residents of Costa Mesa to (make them) feel comfortable with the project.”

Jonathan Kaufman, a spokesman for Solem / Loeb, said “Mesa Action’s newsletter distorted the issues, so we felt an obligation to respond. It’s easy to knock holes in a project and fan the flames in the community. We felt a need to balance it out.”

Some opponents have charged that the ads are misleading.

While touting the tower’s unique amenities, each of the ads, for example, contains one sentence that might lead a reader to think the city already voted in favor of the project.

The third paragraph of the ads reads: “That’s why it should come as no surprise that we’re suggesting improvements to the city approved plan for One South Coast Place.”

Asked about the wording of the ad, Malcolm Ross called it a “boo-boo,” adding, “It should have said former plan or something like that. We all read it but it was just one of those things that slipped by.”

Earlier Plan Approved

The City Council did approve an earlier 3.5-million-square-foot plan for the same site in 1984. But Segerstrom scrapped it in favor of the proposal for a 32-story tower, five low-rise office buildings, a parking garage with ground-level shops and a hotel and restaurant on 3.2 million square feet. Each of those facilities will have to be approved by the City Council in coming years. The company anticipates that the total development will take 15 years to finish.

Councilman David Wheeler, who said he will probably vote against the project because “it will gridlock north Costa Mesa,” said the ads were “misleading at best, lies at worst.”

“It shows the huge sums of money that they will spend to deceive the public,” Wheeler said of Segerstrom’s estimated $50,000 campaign. “There is a city-approved plan for that area. But there is no city-approved plan for their skyscraper.”

In addition to the city’s landscape, opponents of the project say that some political careers may be on the line in tonight’s vote.

“From the number of calls I’ve gotten, I think this is the straw that will break the camel’s back in terms of the uproar from the residential community,” said Dave Leighton, echoing Mesa Action’s message that residents will target pro-development incumbent Mayor Norma Hertzog and Councilwoman Arlene Schafer in the November election, should they vote for the skyscraper. “This is the first time a project has been observed from a citywide viewpoint,” Leighton added. “I’ve never seen so many homeowner associations involved.”

Undecided on Vote

Asked whether she thought a vote in favor of One South Coast Place could make her reelection bid an uphill climb, Hertzog, the council’s 12-year veteran, said: “There have been issues like this before. It’s very difficult to tell. We’ll have to see what the outcome of the situation is (tonight) to assess all this.”

Hertzog said she has not decided how she will vote. Other council members have reported getting a heavier than usual amount of constituent mail--both pro and con--on the project.

“I sure can understand people living in this community resisting being urbanized against their will,” said Councilwoman Mary Hornbuckle, adding that she will oppose the project unless she is persuaded that additional traffic would not clog the city’s streets.

“I don’t know if there’s an easy way to stop the changes,” Hornbuckle said. “We have to be willing to accept the pain that comes along with it.”