LOOKING FOR DOWNTOWN TENANT LANDLORD WAS PAID TO PASS ON BUFFET RESTAURANT.

Byline: Alex Dobuzinskis Staff Writer

BURBANK - The city's Redevelopment Agency paid a landowner about $40,000 in recent months not to lease his space to a buffet restaurant that city officials said would be a bad fit for downtown.

The agreement expired this month, so the property owner, Roberts Department Stores, is looking for a new business to replace A and S Bargain Books as the tenant in the 13,000-square-foot property at 301 N. San Fernando Blvd.

The agency is ``looking for businesses that interact well with each other, and I don't know that the clientele that would have been drawn to the restaurant would create a synergy with the other businesses that have been created downtown now,'' said Assistant City Manager Mike Flad.

The Heavenly Buffet would have been a Chinese restaurant with a high turnover of customers, and city officials expressed concern that there might not be enough parking spaces for the business.

The property is considered important because it is at the entrance to the Palm Avenue walk, which has been improved in recent years with the addition of the AMC 16 Burbank theaters and other businesses.

``It's an absolutely great, great location and we don't see (how) a second-tier or even in some cases a third-tier (business) really enhances the downtown and is the best use for that building in the long run,'' Community Development Director Sue Georgino said recently.

The city's vision for the downtown area is to have a mix of retail stores and restaurants that appeal to all age groups, officials said. Concerned that too many restaurants could crowd downtown, the council approved an ordinance in June requiring restaurants to get special approval from the community development director before opening there.

George Lefcoe, a professor of real estate law at University of Southern California, said the city did well to pay off the property owner. Cities have become more sophisticated at managing the types of businesses that open in redevelopment zones.

``If the city has a good redevelopment agency they should be running that area with the same degree of particular control that a shopping center developer would run a shopping center,'' Lefcoe said.

City officials could not recall another agreement in which the Redevelopment Agency had paid a property owner not to lease to a specific tenant.

Under the agreement Roberts Department Stores entered into with the Redevelopment Agency in February, the company received payments to close the gap between what the bookstore pays and what Heavenly Buffet would have paid for the space.

Instead of coming from the city's general fund, the money came from the Redevelopment Agency, which spends on projects to improve specific areas of the city, including downtown.

City officials had hoped that the furniture store EQ3, which features products with European designs, would be a new tenant at the space. But an agreement between EQ3 and Roberts Department Stores has yet to be reached.

Len Borden, a managing partner at Roberts Department Stores, said he is in talks with a half-dozen potential tenants and hopes to have a lease signed by the end of the summer.

Alex Dobuzinskis, [phone]

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com