PASADENA, CA-Bellevue Ventures LLC of Los Angeles plans a new 75,000-sf shopping center, called Bellevue Center, that will include a two-story Whole Foods market and three levels of parking at the site of a historic building near the new Metro Rail Gold Line. The project is being designed by KTGY Group Inc. of Irvine.
The retail development at the southwest corner of Arroyo Parkway and Bellevue Drive has presented a design challenge, according to Albert Croft, principal at KTGY. Croft, who describes it as "a very tight site that incorporates elements of the 80-year-old existing historic structure" along with the new portions of the project.
To maximize the 1.2-acre site, the three levels of subterranean parking will house more than 280 cars. The project will feature escalators and "cartilators," a system for transporting shopping carts that is similar to escalators, to move shoppers through the different levels of the center.
Greg Lyon, principal at KTGY, notes that the project location on the east side of the Metro Rail Gold Line and just north of the new Metro Rail Station will be especially convenient for commuters. Bellevue Ventures has begun demolition and excavation at the site, where completion is expected in the summer of 2007. CW Driver of Pasadena is the general contractor.
Bellevue Center will be the latest in a series of new retail, office and residential projects in Pasadena, where development and redevelopment have gained momentum in recent years. Last month, for example, the new owner of a retail property at Green Street and Fair Oaks Avenue announced plans to develop 20,000 sf of mixed-use office and retail space on the site.
Pasadena also was home to some of the first mixed-use projects in the Los Angeles area when they began springing up a few years ago, including mixed-use retail and residential as well as office combined with retail and residential combined with office. Among the largest and most recent of these is Shea Properties' $70-million mixed-use Trio apartment and retail complex, which occupies a full block on 3.4 acres in Pasadena's Playhouse District.
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