No wonder, then, that partners Hopkins Real Estate Group and LNRProperty Corp. saw a rare opportunity in a vacant 168-acredevelopment site along the 405 Freeway near an existing retailproperty called South Bay Pavilion that Hopkins is redeveloping.Hopkins and LNR envisioned a plan to redevelop the former CalCompact landfill, located along the 405 Freeway between Avalon andDel Amo boulevards, into a mixed-use project called CarsonMarketplace that would comprise 1.3 million sf of retail andtheater space, restaurants, 1,550 housing units and a 200-roomhotel. Such a development would constitute what Dennis Reyling, COOat Hopkins Real Estate Group, calls "a shopping destination for thewhole South Bay."

Such a large project would take years to develop in any case,but the Carson site will take a bit longer because the reason theacreage is vacant is that it once was a landfill and anydevelopment there will have to wait for remediation. The jointventure of Hopkins and LNR has now embarked on a development planthat calls for a best-case scenario in which construction begins inmid-2009 at the earliest and the first tenants will be open forbusiness in 2010 or 2011.

The final plans for Carson Marketplace are by no means set instone, but Hopkins and LNR are both optimistic that the combinationof the demand for retail and other uses, the pro-development cityadministration and retailers' desire to expand into the market willturn the partners' vision into reality. "It's very likely that theuses we are proposing will ultimately be approved, but we stillhave no guarantee," says Steve Coyne president of the SM Coyne Co.and the development consultant to LNR for the project.