The primary example of that is Petrelli’s Restaurant. When the majority of the Petrelli family told the Redevelopment Agency that they wanted to sell the land, we offered them the same price that another developer had just offered them. We still appraised the property to make sure the price was fair to the Agency, and then we bought the property. At that time, George Petrelli came to us. He asked if he could operate the restaurant himself, leasing the restaurant from the Agency during the time it took for the Agency to find the right project for this property and all the land around it, which already was owned by the Agency.
It Was Just Common Sense
Neither the city, nor the Agency nor any member thereof had any duty to let George lease the restaurant. But it seemed silly to either tear down the restaurant or let it remain empty while we searched for the best use for the land. Petrelli’s had been around Culver City for over 40 years, along with Tito’s Tacos. It was the best known, if not most famous, restaurant in the city. After the Agency leased the restaurant to George, he and his wife, Sophie, invested virtually all of their savings to restore Petrelli’s Restaurant’s great reputation. As George’s restaurant returned to prosperity, I asked the Agency to look into the possibility of relocating Petrelli’s across the street on its current site. I also asked the Agency to help George and Sophie Petrelli finance such a move and the building of a new restaurant. The last offer we had on that property was for a “high-end” car wash, which the entire Agency thought was a bad idea. I don’t have to tell you the end result, but I will: Petrelli’s moved from its old building to its new building (we stopped traffic on Sepulveda to do it) before we had to prepare the old site for the G.M. dealership, Circuit City and Office Depot which are there now.
Help Was Not Obligatory
As I say, there was no legal duty for the Agency to help keep this venerable and honorable business in Culver City. But it made great business sense for the Agency and the city. For anyone who knows them, George and Sophie Petrelli (and their daughter Marie) are exactly the kind of people we want to keep in Culver City. If the editor of this electronic purveyor of personal biases will allow me, I will go in to the good and bad of Redevelopment Agencies, the Power of Eminent Domain, the importance of the Redevelopment Agency to Culver City and the services it provides to its citizens next week.
What Would Be Missing
Just let me list some of the things that would NOT be in Culver City were it not for the Redevelopment Agency. I know. Some we could live without. But some we desperately need to protect the safety of our citizens and the quality of life in our community. Here’s what we would be missing if there were no Redevelopment Agency:
• Culver City Senior Center
• Rotary Plaza Senior Housing Center
• “Liberty Tire” Senior Housing Center
• Westfield Shopping Town (Fox Hills)
• City Hall
• Fire Station No. 1.
• The bicycle and jogging path along Culver Boulevard.
• Millions in reparations and restorations to the Veterans’ Auditorium, the playing fields, and the Plunge.
• The widening of the sidewalks Downtown and the rearrangement of all the confusing Stop signs downtown.
• The Culver Hotel. (The Agency loaned over $800,000 for the earthquake retrofit.)
• The Watseka Parking Structure and the Cardiff Parking Structure
• The Ivy Substation and the renovation of Media Park.
• The preservation of the Culver Theater, which is now the Douglas Theatre.
• The roads, street lights and traffic lights in all redevelopment areas, including Downtown.
• The theaters Downtown, Trader Joe’s, and Coldstone Creamery.
• The G.M. dealership (which again honored the ownership of Bill Murphy Buick and worked with the family when the Agency bought the Murphy Buick site Downtown. They also worked with them to sell their franchise to the new owners who bought the G.M. dealership on Slauson.)
• The Office Depot and Circuit City.
• Mike Miller Toyota. This is another example of keeping a local business in town by providing it, through eminent domain, a much large site on which to sell automobiles.
• Costco.
• Petrelli’s new restaurant .
And, of course,
• The Culver City Police Dept. and
• The Culver City Fire Dept.
Postscript
If you don’t believe that our police and fire departments would have to have been given up to the County Sheriff and the County Fire Dept. if the Redevelopment Agency hadn’t been very active in Culver City, please read next week’s article, if that anarchist editor of this newspaper lets me write it.
