ANAHEIM : Car Dealers Fighting Medical Center Plan

Dealers at the Anaheim Auto Center are challenging plans to build a medical center on a neighboring property, saying the land should be left vacant until it can be used to expand the car dealerships.

The dealers have formally asked the City Council to require the Fluor Family Trust, which owns the seven-acre lot at Auto Center Drive and Sanderson Avenue, to file an environmental impact report before it allows the zoning change needed for construction.

“But the underlying reason (for the appeal) is to convince the city that the best use for that land is to preserve it for auto dealership use,” said Thomas G. Kieviet, attorney for the center’s three dealers.

“The city (through its Redevelopment Agency) has poured millions of dollars into the auto center. It needs to have more than three dealers if it is to draw significant customers.”

Cecil C. Wright, the trust’s attorney, said Monday that there is a tentative agreement between Cigna Health Care and the trust to build a two-story medical center on half of the lot, which would still leave about 3.5 acres for any further expansion of the auto center.

The trust oversees property owned by the Fluor family, which founded the Fluor Corp., an Irvine-based engineering and construction giant.

Wright said the medical center would meet the city’s plans for the auto center area and should be allowed to proceed.

In a letter to the city administrators, Wright said it is unreasonable to expect the auto center to expand in the near future.

“The auto market is in disarray, and because of this and the status of the economy, there is no chance in the near term that any auto dealerships will offer to occupy the Fluor property,’ Wright wrote.

Kieviet said that while there may not be any dealers willing to take over the parcel at the moment, dealers have been interested in the past and will be again when the economy recovers.

“In the long term, it is in the city’s best interest that the Fluor property be available for the auto center’s expansion because of the thousands of dollars of sales tax revenue it could generate,” Kieviet said.

“We’re not saying, necessarily, that the Fluors’ property rights should be taken from them. The city could enter into some type of lease or property exchange with them.”

A council hearing on the dealer’s appeal is scheduled for Aug. 11 at City Hall.