La Jolla Community Planning Association in June deadlocked —and therefore made no recommendation — on a proposal by a local landlord to change zoning on the ground floor of the building at 1111 Prospect St. to allow more office space and less retail.
The building on the corner of Prospect Street and Herschel Avenue, which previously housed boutique Hotel Parisi and Victoria’s Secret, has been vacant the past couple years.
La Jolla entrepreneur Peter Wagner came to the association asking to increase, from 25 to 50 percent, the maximum amount of office space allowed on the building’s ground floor.
“If you say no, it’s going to stay empty,” warned Wagner, noting he’s spent two years unsuccessfully trying to lease the building’s ground-floor space for retail. He said he has a prospective tenant if more ground-floor space can be rezoned for office rather than retail.
Wagner said his proposal to trade off retail for office makes sense in light of the fact that Prospect Street is not primarily retail but more mixed-use.
“La Jolla retail is in dire straits,” Wagner said.
Marcella Escobar-Eck, representing Wagner, gave a slideshow presentation showing a proposed reconfiguration of the ground-floor space, allowing a portion of the building’s frontage to be changed from retail to office.
“What we’re asking for is not any type of deviation,” she said. “We’re not asking to change the minimum amount of retail but to have more flexibility in the amount of office space allowed, including some (building) frontage.”
Escobar-Eck said Wagner is proposing to have visitor-serving commercial square footage in the front of the building.
“This is a prominent plaza; we want to keep it activated,” she added.
Escobar-Eck pointed out that, if the association approved trading off retail for office now, the use could be changed back later on should the retail leasing environment improve.
Several trustees objected, arguing that trading off retail for office violates the spirit of La Jolla land-use planning and sets an irreversible precedent likely to be followed by others.
“Visitor-serving commercial is not retail; it’s a bit junky, just stuff on the sidewalk,” said trustee Fran Zimmerman, adding, “It’s a charming plaza and about the only place where people and kids can gather. We don’t want to have newspapers or candy sold or a coffee cart. That’s not retail.”
Trustee Jim Fitzgerald agreed.
“This isn’t retail but a vending area of some sort,” he said, noting, “That’s exceedingly valuable real estate in the Village.”
“There is nobody interested in that space for retail, and there hasn’t been for 2½ years,” Wagner responded.
“That plaza area is one of the most photographed places in La Jolla,” pointed out Sally Miller from the audience.
“We’re continuing to lose retail,” noted Sheila Fortune, La Jolla Village Merchants Association executive director. Fortune said the intent of the community plan is to “keep that plaza area as retail.”
Trustee Ray Weiss said his take was that the intent was to keep “high-quaility retail” in the building and not allow “T-shirt shops or coffee vendors.”