Seeking Pizza Shop, Hold the Dishes
New Seaside shopping center completes shell, courts tenants.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
It took nearly three years, but two-building, 4,010-square-foot Laguna Grande Center between Sonoma and Amador avenues on Seaside’s Canyon Del Rey Boulevard is almost done.
Developer Larry Scholink, a Carmel-based realtor, describes the Tuscan-style architecture as “tough-skinned Mediterranean.” Now that the shell’s complete, he’s looking for renters.
He says he’s in discussions with various visitor-serving businesses including deli, bakery, coffee, pizza, juice and yogurt shops. A natural-foods store is also a possibility. “I’m trying to go toward the healthier side of life,” he says. “The feedback has been very positive.”
The center’s water permit allows general retail and food purveyors with disposable packaging, but not restaurants with dishes to wash.
After two potential property sales – one to Reggie Jackson’s now-defunct Landmark hotel group, the other to the city of Seaside – fell through, Scholink pulled his building permits in September 2009. At the time, the property across from Embassy Suites was blighted with a vacant lot and a dilapidated single-family home.
“I confronted a lot of issues. One was a change in the economy; the other was the defunding of redevelopment,” he says. He’d hoped for the city’s assistance with sidewalks and street gutters, which are non-starters now that the Redevelopment Agency has been dissolved.
But the city considers the two-and-a-half-year construction timeline a win. “They have made significant progress,” Seaside Building Official Mark McClain says. “A little quicker than we had assumed due to the economic conditions.”
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