Costa Mesa auto dealership’s ‘green wall’ isn’t growing fast enough for some
The general manager of Suburban Buick GMC Cadillac of Costa Mesa is asking for patience after a community activist and a member of the city Planning Commission recently questioned the state of a “green wall” meant to be covered with vegetation to help shield the car dealership from nearby homes.
Mesa Verde resident Jay Humphrey brought up the wall during last week’s Planning Commission meeting, showing pictures contrasting the lush vegetation presented in renderings with the largely bare fence there now.
The current metal grid wall, Humphrey said, looks “nothing close to what they said it was going to look like.”
Planning Commissioner Colin McCarthy agreed during the Dec. 12 meeting.
“Part of the application for this was the renderings for the lush, green, living wall, and now we don’t have that,” McCarthy said.
Mark McKellop, general manager of the Harbor Boulevard dealership, said the green wall’s completion as envisioned is now largely in the hands of Mother Nature.
On Thursday, he showed how several climbing vines are making their way up the wall on the south side of the dealership. The vines wind up to about 10 feet off the ground in some places, though the wall is still largely free of vegetation.
The vines were planted around the time the facility opened in February, said Kevin Hoover, the dealership’s parts and service director.
The wall is about 25 feet tall and at least 200 feet long, so it will take time for everything to grow in, McKellop said.
He said the pace of the growth may pick up as the vines continue to come in.
The 61,000-square-foot dealership sits on a 4-acre lot at 2600 Harbor Blvd., between Merrimac Way and Princeton Drive. The property previously was home to Nabers Cadillac beginning in the 1960s, and then an Orange Coast dealership.
Construction on the new dealership attracted controversy in 2014 when nearby residents on Princeton flocked to City Hall to express concerns about light, noise and loss of privacy. Others claimed that work associated with the project had damaged their properties.
After the facility opened, there were a few complaints about light spilling into the neighborhood, but the dealership installed additional shielding on its lights to address that issue, Hoover said.
“We’re proud of how we interact with the public and the neighbors and community, and that’s what you have to do when you run a big store like this,” McKellop said. “So if there’s any individual who has a specific complaint, they’re always welcome to call, and if we can address it, we will. There’s no intention of being bad neighbors, that’s for sure.”
Twitter: @LukeMMoney
