Monrovia Looks’ Forward to Three Large Development Projects This Year
By Susan Motander
City Manager Oliver Chi updated the community on the three large projects the city anticipates will be scheduled for entitlement hears within the next five months. The first is the Marriot Towne Place Suite, the other two are large housing units, one near Station Square, the other at the south end of Old Town.
The Marriot Hotel project has been under development for more than a year. It is a 113 room hotel set to be built at the southwest corner of Myrtle Avenue and Huntington Drive. According to Heidi de Guzman of Tharaldson Hospitality Development, that development company is in the process of preparing the negative impact environmental report. Once that is completed, the process of plan check will start
The housing development by Richman Residential is a 296-unit multi-family project. The developers hope to build the apartment complex at the northeast corner of Duarte Road and Magnolia Avenue. This would put it adjacent to the Gold Line Station to the south.
Currently the station is accessible only from the north. Craig Jimenez, Monrovia’s Community Development Director said that Metro is supporting the request for opening up the station from the south and that the developers are working such access into the plans. In order to open the second access from the south, the California Public Utilities Commission must approve the request Metro has already put to them.
The final project is from the developers, Avalon Bay and is a proposed multi-family housing development. The proposal is for the apartment complex to be built at the northwest corner of Chestnut and Myrtle Avenues within walking distance of Old Town and (with a good stretch of the legs) the Gold Line Station less than a half a mile south.
It must be remembered that large projects such as these do not always proceed at the anticipated rate. The schedule for each project is subject to change. Jimenez also noted that while the two multi-family housing units are designed to be apartment complexes, they could be converted to condominiums if several legal steps were taken, although that is not anticipated at this time.