SAN DIEGO—
The San Diego City County approved a $200 million redevelopment project for Hazard Center in Mission Valley on Tuesday afternoon.The City Council voted 7-0 to approve the development. The project will add two towers of 200 apartment each as well as 73 row homes. The project proposal was met with opposition from both the Asian Film Festival and the Latino Film Festival which use at the UltraStar Cinemas in Hazard Center every year. The theater will be demolished as part of the redevelopment.
"It's the financial impact on us as nonprofits is that we're really, really concerned about," said Lee Ann Kim, executive director of the Asian Film Festival.
Kim said moving venues will increase costs for the non-profit by about 50 percent.
"Moving to any place in the city is going to be difficult on us because of the fact that the city has a lack of affordable accessible theater venues," she said.
Those with the Latino Film Festival echo Kim's sentiments.
"As soon as you start going downtown, you're going to pay more for parking more for hotels more for everything," said Ethan Von Thillo with the Latino Film Festival.
The developer, Oliver McMillan, offered $25,000 Tuesday to help the festivals find another venue.
"We're going to kick in some money to help them with the seed money for planning on this and we're interested in it so we'd like to give them some help with the city and working on a bigger and better plan for them," said Dene Oliver of Oliver McMillan.
Those against the project worry it will congest traffic further. Oliver believes traffic may actually go down with more people using the nearby trolley. He said the UltraStar Cinemas is an underperforming theater in need of an upgrade.
"It's a center that needs help," Oliver said. "It needs evolution. It's a bit tired and this is a chance to bring it back to get some new life for it and we all want to do that."
Oliver said construction won't begin until the economy improves. He said the best case scenario would be three years, so the festivals can use the Hazard Center venue for at least another two years.
