Glendale officials considering downsized Town Center plan. (Up Front).

Glendale city officials are considering a 40 percent reduction in the residential portion of the proposed Glendale Town Center project in what some are calling a major shift in the balance of power between homeowner and business interests.

Officials stress that the $150 million mixed-use development on 15 acres in Glendale's downtown district is still in the concept stage. But they have asked for revisions that would reduce the total number of housing units to 300 from 500, with 200 apartment and 100 condominium units.

"My colleagues said we don't like downtown housing or it's too much," said Dave Weaver, one of Glendale's five city council members. "I didn't say that it was too much, but I'm one person. Three votes wins."

Calls to the other Glendale City Council members were not returned.

Rick Caruso, president of Caruso Affiliated Holdings, the developer awarded the Town Center project a little over a year ago, said the project is still workable at lower density levels, although he added that the outcome of these discussions will affect price negotiations for the land.

Town center approach

"The less residential we can build, the less we're able to pay for the land," Caruso said. "So from that standpoint, the less density the less value. But that's a decision the city needs to come to terms with as to where the valuation for the land is"

Plans for the site at Brand Boulevard and Colorado Avenue came and went for 15 years until Glendale awarded the project to Caruso, who has developed a reputation as a builder of shopping centers that also serve as town centers for communities. Some of the company's most recent projects have been The Grove at Farmers Market and The Commons in Calabasas.

The earliest plans called for 300,000 square feet of retail space and 1.7 acres of public park space, in addition to the residential component.

But Glendale officials now see the project, located on what is the city's last large undeveloped parcel, as an opportunity to provide a central gathering place for the community, and the allotment for open space has been increased to somewhat more than two acres.

"Our most important interest in the project was to get significant open space and surround that park with uses that would be complementary, which turn out to be shopping, restaurants and housing," said Jeanne Armstrong, Glendale's director of development services.

Armstrong said the council is trying to balance the city's housing shortage with concerns that population density has become excessive in certain neighborhoods.

Others said councilmembers are appealing to a not-in-my-backyard mentality at the expense of a project that should be aimed at revitalizing the city's economy and enhancing its tax base.

They point out that Glendale never has had a strong restaurant or entertainment sector and a larger residential base is necessary to fuel the expanded downtown commercial district.

"For downtown to work well, you need a balance between residential and business," said Hamo Rostamian, retail specialist with CB Richard Ellis, a former city council candidate and a member of the Downtown Strategic Plan Committee that advised on the development plans for Town Center. "The whole idea of having a sufficient number of bodies encapsulates why Town Center is valid."

Pushing for revenues

Rostamian and others worry that Glendale's only commercial revenue sources are the Galleria and auto dealers, and said the enclosed mall does not drive traffic to any other retail businesses in the downtown area. If Glendale is to revitalize its downtown, they argue, it needs not only additional commercial establishments, but a ready market of consumers who will frequent them, day and night.

"The center of town should be a center of commerce," said Carl Raggio, who served for eight years on the Glendale City Council. "Half the property is park, and nobody lives there. You cut back on housing, install a park where no one lives, and you have to drive to get there.

"That doesn't make sense and, when you do that, you take the potential of paying property and that means the city's revenues, which could be more, will be less."

Raggio formed a Glendale Tomorrow, a business group, to support a number of business-friendly city council candidates in the last election. All of its candidates were defeated.

"What it really is is five people who have never been in the position of governing before who are now micro-managing," said Raggio. "They got caught up in this thing where to satisfy the homeowners associations, they'll do anything they're told to do."