Port OKs Plan to Redevelop Wilmington’s Waterfront : Renewal: Long-sought project will transform 30 acres from industrial to commercial use at a cost of at least $15 million.

After almost a decade of prodding and proposals from Wilmington activists, the Los Angeles Harbor Commission has adopted a plan to redevelop a 30-acre portion of the community’s waterfront and provide better access to the area for residents.

The project, adopted Wednesday, outlines a series of street improvements, commercial developments and new facilities for the southern tip of Wilmington from C Street to the waterfront, between Fries and Broad avenues. The proposed development is expected to cost at least $15 million over the next 20 years.

“We feel today is a very historic day for Wilmington,” Ann D’Amato, San Pedro deputy for harbor-area Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, told the commissioners.

Although community activists have urged the redevelopment of the Wilmington waterfront since the early 1980s, it was not until 1988 that city and port officials embarked on a specific plan to bring new commercial development to an area occupied for years by industrial yards and facilities related to port commerce.

The plan, fashioned by the Wilmington Community Advisory Committee and designed by a Baltimore-based architectural firm that transformed that city’s waterfront from industrial to commercial, calls for the following:

* A 20,000-square-foot community center clustered with restaurants, retail shops and a waterfront promenade at Banning’s Landing.

* New offices and retail shops at three sites on Avalon Boulevard.

* Realignment of Avalon Boulevard south of B Street to provide direct access to the waterfront.

* Street improvements, including pedestrian walkways, at the intersection of Avalon Boulevard and B Street.

Though the plan’s total cost has been put at $14.9 million by RTKL Associates, the architects, port officials said their analysis suggests that the cost will be much higher.

For example, the first phase of the project, which includes the improvements at Banning’s Landing, was estimated by consultants to cost the port $5.6 million.

But Sid Robinson, the port’s director of planning and research, said his staff’s review indicates that the first phase will cost $15.8 million.

In part because of costs, port officials disagreed with the Wilmington Community Advisory Committee’s plan to relocate the Catalina Freight Line facility to accommodate the waterfront development. Letting the freight company stay, port officials said, would save millions of dollars in relocation costs. Further, they said, there is no urgency in moving the company because its site cannot reasonably be redeveloped for years.

But that argument was challenged by committee members, including George De La Torre, who chaired the advisory committee and argued that relocating the freight company would be an important symbol to the community and would prove more expensive the longer it is delayed.

“It’s not going to get any less costly to move them in the future,” De La Torre told commissioners.

At the committee’s urging, commissioners took a more open view of relocating Catalina Freight than the port’s staff, agreeing that they will periodically review that possibility rather than wait for the company’s lease to expire in 2006.

“If it is reasonable or prudent, there is nothing stopping the board from looking into it at any time,” commission President Ronald Lushing said.

But commissioners would not compromise with the committee over its proposal to close New Water Street to trucks. That recommendation was based on committee concerns over traffic, but port officials insisted that the route must remain open to all vehicles in case Mormon Island has to be evacuated in an emergency.

In the coming months, a 15-member committee will be appointed by the port to oversee the five-year initial phase of the project, which includes the community center and facilities at Banning’s Landing.