Years after city officials put zoning plans together, the planning commission has approved a new medical official building that provides evidence that finally, some of the pieces are beginning to fall into place.
The city’s planning commission has unanimously approved a 23,000-square-foot medical office building (19,328 feet of leasable space) that replaces an older industrial building that will be torn down to make way for the new structure.
The site of the proposed new structure is located on the eastern side of Kyle Street (10852 Kyle Street), across from the Deft Touch Soccer location. It currently exists as a partially demolished – through fire damage – industrial building, said Associate Planner Tom Oliver.
The area to the north is developed with Industrial Uses in the Planned Light Industrial (P-L-I)Zoning District with a Medical Overlay (M). The area to the east is developed with industrial uses in the same Zoning District, one of which is becoming a medical office building at 10851 Bloomfield. The area to the south is developed with a hospital parking lot in the Los Alamitos Medical Center Specific Zone District.
“The structural plan is to demolish the rest of the walls of the fire-damaged existing building and construct a one-story office building with two stories of parking with one underground,” he added.
While the underlying land use remains Planned Industrial, this Overlay encourages and permits medical businesses as primary uses on the north side of the Los Alamitos Medical Center campus,” said Oliver.
Therefore, he said the proposed project would be consistent with the city’s General Plan designation.
Oliver said the two stories of parking, accessible from Kyle Street or the alley, will have 99 parking stalls, “so there is no question there.”
Since the building will cover the entire property, the medical office building will have indoor landscaping, including major landscaping on the building’s rooftop deck.
Hannible Petrossi, who told the commission he has been developing medical office buildings for two decades in the city.
Petrossi said he began the project after being approached by a group of doctors seeking quality office space in Los Alamitos.
“The project went very smoothly through the design and planning stages,” said Petrossi.
“We have taken advantage of going underground and then also having parking on the street level,” he said, “so we can have more than 19,000 square feet of useable area.
He said the minimum number of parking spaces was 97 and this building will have 99, including an area of 19’ x 19’ for motorcycles and bicycles.
Petrossi said the doctors also requested the rooftop deck area “to take a break from their busy schedules. Petrossi also said the rooftop landscaping will cover 15.4 percent, which is more than the 15 percent minimum.
He said the doctors wanted a modern design, reflective of the high tech medical equipment that will outfit the building.
Chairwoman Mary Ann Cuilty asked Petrossi if the building would be charging for parking and Petrossi said no decision has yet been made. He said doctors are scrambling to meet the growing cost of construction, which is gone up more than 30 percent, just since they have been working on the design.
“That’s (parking fees) not set yet,” he said. “My understanding is that everyone else around here is charging for parking like the hospital (Los Alamitos Medical Center) and other medical buildings, but they have yet to make a decision on that.”
Commissioner Art DeBolt said the proposed medical building is a sign that city planning is paying off.
“I think it is going to be a vast improvement to that area. It’s nice to see that the changes made years ago are starting to finally come to fruition.”
The proposal now heads to the city council for final approval.