By Eric Heinz
The plans to turn the Miramar Theater into a boutique restaurant hub and events center could come before the Planning Commission by mid-May, according to the man who has championed the project since last year.
Wayne Eggleston, who is himself a planning commissioner and will have to recuse himself when the proposal does come before the commission, said during a subcommittee meeting last week historic aspects of the plans were discussed.
Eggleston said the state of affairs at the theater are pretty grim. The company that owns the Miramar—Miramar Theater, LLC.—had already planned to demolish and replace much of the bowling alley portion of the structure.
“You can’t spend much time in there, and the mold is just awful; it’s not very healthy to go in there,” Eggleston said.
Eggleston said that there are still gorgeous features from the theater’s original construction, such as large support beams and lanterns within it.
In order to be considered for the National Registry of Historic Places, the developers will have to prove multiple items. Such things include what will be replaced, maintained or renovated, and Eggleston said they want to be able to foresee as many obstacles as possible to avoid running into problems, like what happened with the Ole Hanson Beach Club—a project in which the city went nearly $5 million over budget.
“Obviously (as a historic structure) we want to be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (basic requirements) and in order to do that, we have to … cross our Ts and dot our Is.
“I think it’s important to go after the (parking) waivers, and once this thing is operational and gets going, then we can see what we can do with parking,” he said.
Eggleston said the project will look to receive up to 80 parking waivers, a concession similar to what Casino San Clemente received when it became operational again, Eggleston said.
The Planning Commission has not yet slated the project at a future meeting, but SC Times will provide more information when it becomes available.
gee don’t we think the citizens of san clemente deserve their parking lot before the needy and greedy
don’t we know that those waivers are worth millions
don’t we know that those waivers will jam pack our neighborhood because its free to park in the neighborhood and not free in the city’s parking lot ,,
please note the little houses in the neighborhood adjacent to the miramar have just little one car garages and ittybitty drive ways
gee don’t we know that wynne’s world persecutes blue collar workers because they have tools and ladders so they may perform their work out of their pu trucks for their little micro businesses what a business bigot ,,,i guess the one business is more important than the many citizen based businesses in wynne’s world
the current owners have not repaired or maintained this property on purpose as a form of strong arm extortion and wynn’s world condones this
all other property owners have to conform to parking codes that devalue and restrict their development but the despot style wynnes world is special and absurd
Tear it down!
This is the first thing we all have to look at when we come home and it’s a rotting hulk of stucco that needs to go.
Also we don’t have anymore parking left in our own neighborhood and you want to bring in more?
Tear it down and put up a small walk up park and landscape it to match the rest of N. Beach.
Stop wasting our time and tax money on someone else’s “bright” idea.