Farmers Market Owners Continue Push for Project

Disappointed by City Councilman John Ferraro’s vision of a modest shopping center where they hope to build 2 million square feet of retail, hotel and office space, the owners of the Farmers Market said Wednesday they will proceed with their proposal as they formulate a response to Ferraro’s.

“I’m very optimistic that we’re going to be able to prevail, that our proposal was good, and that some manner or other we’ll get through the process with a project that will be meaningful for everybody,” said Hank Hilty, president of the A.F. Gilmore Co., which has been trying to develop the property since 1983.

While he was cheered that Ferraro opted for a development that would be largely retail--other city officials had suggested housing or offices only--Hilty called the councilman’s proposed 65% reduction in the project’s size “drastic.”

“I’m disappointed that he rejected the other pieces, because that would have made a more balanced project,” Hilty said of Ferraro’s declaration during a hearing Tuesday.

He said it was not yet clear whether Gilmore and its partner--Chicago-based JMB Urban Development--would find it worthwhile to go ahead with the project as proposed by Ferraro.

“When you’re looking at as radical a change as the council office has proposed, it requires a lot of new thinking,” said Hilty, whose family-owned company acquired the land at the corner of 3rd Street and Fairfax Avenue more than a century ago. As envisioned, the project would surround the Farmers Market but not alter it.

“We have architects and consultants scrambling to see if it’s a feasible project from an economic standpoint,” said Allen J. Abshez, an attorney representing Gilmore.

Abshez acknowledged that Ferraro’s position would carry a good deal of weight with John Parker, the city hearing officer who is expected to rule on the proposal next month.

Parker, as deputy advisory agent, can recommend any number of conditions for the project.

It will then be up to the developer or neighborhood groups to decide whether to accept Parker’s ruling or to appeal it.

Ferraro’s concept would limit the project to 700,000 square feet of new shopping, including two department stores, and 150 senior citizen housing units.

If appealed, the case is likely to go to the city council, where members generally let their colleagues have their way on issues affecting individual districts.

Ferraro carries extra clout because he also serves as council president, a job that includes the politically valuable responsibility of assigning colleagues to committees.

City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents an adjoining district, said he traveled to Chicago five weeks ago to meet with JMB executives in an effort to persuade them to accept a smaller project. “I sat with them from 3 p.m. until 9 at night, going over drawings, maps, arguing and cajoling,” he said.

“This is not the era any longer where a developer is in a strong enough position to beat back not only Ferraro, but me and Ferraro.”

While Mayor Tom Bradley will not have a direct say in the fate of the Farmers Market project, Ferraro’s proposal owes a good deal to recommendations that came from an urban design workshop the mayor sponsored in April, said Jane Blumenfeld, Bradley’s planning adviser.

“It definitely moves toward being sensitive to the community and to the issues people raised, particularly the types of uses and the traffic,” she said Wednesday.

Diana Plotkin, president of the Beverly Wilshire Homeowners Assn., said that Ferraro’s concept was a “positive first step,” but she was still worried about increased traffic.

Michael Feuer, a leader of the Committee to Preserve Fairfax, which has expressed concerns about the loss of the Fairfax District’s homey flavor, said that Ferraro’s proposed cuts were “not enough.”

“He’s moving in the right direction but it’s still unsatisfactory,” Feuer said.

While he welcomed the proposed reduction in the project’s size, David Hamlin, president of the Park Labrea Tenants Assn., said Ferraro appears to have given the developers “95% of what they always wanted.”

The Gilmore Co. hoped to build a Nordstrom, a May Co. and a Robinson’s on the 31-acre site, but “I don’t think anyone in the community ever believed there would be three stores,” said Hamlin.

Hilty acknowledged that he did not expect Ferraro to go along with the construction of three department stores. “But the level of the reduction he made surprised us,” he said.