By David Rosenfeld & Kirsten Farmer
Feb. 11, 2019 as seen in The Beach Reporter

Developer offers to sell half of Redondo Beach AES power plant site to city for park land

The power plant that has dominated the Redondo Beach waterfront since the 1950s could share half of its space with a park in a new plan floated by the proposed buyer of the AES site.

In a letter to the California Natural Resources Agency dated Friday, Feb. 8, developer Leo Pustilnikov and his company Next Century Power LLC, agreed to offer the city 25 acres of the 51-acre site for $2 million per acre for park land.

While Pustilnikov has previously said he wanted to convert up to half of the property into a park, his recent letter marks the first time an offer has been formalized.

The city still has to secure funding for the land, which officials hope will come largely from the $4 billion Proposition 68 bond measure that voters passed in June 2018. On Tuesday, Feb. 12, the City Council is expected to apply for $30 million of that bond money, which it wants to put toward the park.

For Mayor Bill Brand, who has fought for park land to replace the power plant for more than 17 years, the offer from Pustilnikov was a generous one, but it did not mean the park was guaranteed yet.

“This is not a make or break application,” Brand said. “We have many other avenues to pursue for purchasing any and all of this site.”

In addition, Brand said the city recently opened negotiations with Southern California Edison to purchase five acres of the power line corridor west of Pacific Coast Highway that leads away from the power plant. That land also would likely be designated for a park, Brand said.

Pustilnikov’s price does not include an estimated $1.5 million per acre his company would spend for remediation, the developer wrote in his letter.

Close to six acres of the site would be turned into wetlands, in accordance with a Coastal Commission determination four years ago. The city would then bear the cost of the wetland restoration estimated at $5 million.

Pustilnikov, meanwhile, is still in escrow to purchase the AES site and its natural gas power plant, which is set to shut down in 2020. He has so far finalized purchase of a building west of Harbor Drive where the SEA Lab is currently located, in addition to a nearby parking lot, both owned by AES.

The developer has also been in discussions to acquire leases in the Redondo Beach waterfront that could lead to a plan that combines the waterfront property and the AES site, according to Brand.

For now, however, much of the leases at the waterfront site remain under the control of CenterCal Properties, which is still battling with the city in a lawsuit to recover $15 million it reportedly lost when its $400 million development deal fell through. That lawsuit might not be resolved for another three to four years, according to Brand.

In an email exchange with Pustilnikov on Monday, Feb. 11, the developer called the deal preliminary. The park, he said, would serve as the foundation for any future development at the site.

For Jim Light, who helped lead several efforts to oppose development plans at the site since the Heart of the City first emerged in 2001, the proposed deal to secure park land was a long time coming.

“I’m very ecstatic,” Light said. “It’s the first I’ve seen in concrete offering something to the city for half the site … I think it’s vindication that we were right to hold out on the other development plans.”

Mayor Brand — who is fond of talking about a park by the sea in Redondo Beach — was not doing a victory dance just yet.

“I’ll be jumping up and down when we cut the ribbon on the park … if I’m still capable,” Brand said.