Planners approve apartment plan for motel property

Plans to demolish the Costa Mesa Motor Inn and replace it with new apartments took a step forward Monday, with the city’s Planning Commission signing off on the project before it heads to the City Council.

The commission unanimously approved a proposal for the motel at 2277 Harbor Blvd. to be replaced with 224 apartments within an amenity-rich complex that includes a swimming pool, spa, dog park, communal garden and Internet cafe.

An executive from the Motor Inn’s owner, Los Angeles-based Miracle Mile Properties — formerly known as Century Quality Management — said the company wants to retain ownership of the 4.15-acre parcel and has rejected offers to sell it off to developers who wanted to build single-family homes there.

Lionel Levy, Miracle Mile’s chief operations officer, said the company will invest some $50 million into the project.

Pending the council’s approval of the development — which would require a zoning change from commercial to high-density residential — the Motor Inn is tentatively scheduled to close Aug. 1.

The motel’s long-term residents will be given relocation packages, provided by Miracle Mile, that total between $4,000 to $5,500 for each room, according to Don Lamm, a former Costa Mesa development official representing Miracle Mile.

“We thought this would be generous,” Lamm said.

He added that the summer 2016 closing date was purposeful, so children from families living in the motel can finish the spring semester before finding a new place to live.

“We haven’t walked in here with the goal of quickly doing this and jamming it down,” Lamm said.

Lamm said Miracle Mile needed the high density zoning to make the project financially feasible. If the council doesn’t end up approving it, he added, Miracle Mile may turn the motel into a Best Western.

Affordable-housing advocates contested the commission’s decision, saying the Motor Inn is needed for the city’s low income residents.

Kathy Esfahani of the Costa Mesa Affordable Housing Coalition — which is staging a protest later this month in reaction to the potential loss of the motel — noted how the Motor Inn has always been an important source of housing for the city’s working poor.

She urged that the new apartments contain units for the low and very low income.

Levy disagreed with the assertion that the Motor Inn is affordable.

The motel, built in the early 1970s, has 236 rooms, some with kitchenettes, that are 300 square feet. As of June 1, Levy said, rents ranged from $1,213 to $1,334 a month.

“That’s a lot of money for 300 square feet,” he said.

The Motor Inn, which first opened as the Ambassador Inn, has long carried an infamous reputation in Costa Mesa.

City code enforcement raids in 2013 found 490 alleged health and safety violations within a majority of the motel rooms.

Last year, the Planning Commission said the Motor Inn was “operating as a public nuisance.”

In early 2014, the City Council adopted its “Excessive Use of Resources” ordinance, which issued fines to lodging establishments like the Motor Inn if they went over a certain threshold of calls for police service.

Lamm said conditions at the Motor Inn have improved “slightly” since then. The motel now has iron gates that better restrict access to the parking lots. Instead of traditional metal keys, guests use electronic keys to get into their rooms.

“The situation is better,” Lamm said, “but it still is what it is.”

Two Harbor Boulevard business owners praised the commission’s decision.

Addison Stansfield, manager at the Avis rental car store next to the Motor Inn, called the move a “very strong step forward” toward eliminating blight and crime along Harbor Boulevard.

“To put it simply, I’m highly in favor of this project,” he said.

Mick Meldrum, representing partners of the Harbor Center across the street, said people associated with the Motor Inn have long been a “huge problem.”

Criminals and addicts who stay or live there, he said, have forced the Harbor Center to double and triple its security staff “to try and keep up with the onslaught of undesirable people.”

“Approving the proposed project,” Meldrum added, “will help eliminate these type of people from living so close to this shopping area.”