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By Shawn Raymundo
For a while, Sara Peterson, owner of Zebra House Coffee, had heard of the progression of a food broker in North Beach. He had the concept of how the location to grow his business and the concept of a local food court as a smart one.
There is a problem. There is no owner or official representative with whom she can simply communicate about the concept.
“We didn’t know who to contact and there wasn’t an owner,” Peterson recalls, “then we forgot. “
Then, according to fate, he won a call from Mohammad Muhtaseb, a spouse of Landmark Food Halls, the owner and operator of the Miramar Food Hall structure in North Beach.
“He asked us to have an exclusive asset kiosk. . . we’re really excited,” Peterson explained. When he approached me, I said ‘Oh my God, I can’t, the circle is closed,'” I said. yes, let’s do it. By far, what is the plan?»
The plan is to have 15 local food vendors in San Clemente or Orange County occupying the area at Miramar Food Hall. Currently, Muhtaseb told the San Clemente Times this week that all two stalls have been rented.
“There is a growing need for modern and growing hospitality in San Clemente that is popular and local, and we believe a varied dining room of 15 vendors will be activated five to six times a week with live music, shows, exhibits and a plethora of other experimental occasions will be a key driving force for North Beach’s expansion and success, ” Muhtaseb said in an email.
Like Muhtaseb, Peterson grew out of the concept and explained that the assignment, recovery and reallocation of the historic San Clemente Bowling Center to the food court will be a blessing for North Beach and those who already enjoy the area.
“It’s going to create a genuine hub between Landers (Liquor Bar) and the brewery that’s in the surf ghetto,” Peterson said, referring to The Molinos Beer Company. “With all the outdoor activities taking place there, this dining room is bringing it all together. It will be a position, an attraction. I’m excited to be a component of that.
That excitement has been shared through city officials and stakeholders like the San Clemente Historical Society since December 2019, when restaurateur James Markham purchased the bowling alley and adjacent Miramar Theater for about $8 million.
With the structure recently underway to revive the two historic homes like Miramar Event Center and Food Hall, the assignment is expected to help revitalize the newly designated North Beach Historic District to once be an entertainment and recreation center, much like the city’s founder. Imagined, Ole Hanson, in the 1920s.
However, for a time, the Great Depression prevented Hanson’s plans from becoming a reality. It wasn’t until the time in the 1930s, when San Clemente’s economy began to recover, that the new progression helped bring sleep back to life. with the local ballroom, the Casino San Clemente and the Teatro San Clemente.
Described in marketing fabrics as “man’s hard contribution to beauty,” the theater was built for $75,000, or about $1. 4 million in today’s dollars, and can accommodate some 680 people. On opening night in 1938, visitors paid 35 cents to enjoy a double movie, Mad About Music and Goodbye Broadway.
Over the decades, historic construction has replaced the property several times, it was renamed in 1970 as Teatro Miramar and even chimney jamming in 2005. Since the 1990s, it has remained dormant, as the owners’ revolving door has proposed projects for the theater and bowling, neither of which has gained popularity.
That’s until 2017, when the city and the California Coastal Commission approved rights to the 61-acre assets that would lay the groundwork for existing development.
With those rights, Markham and Muhtaseb worked on the rehabilitation of both buildings. With the recovery of the Bowling Center as a dining room, the closed cinema will be an intermediate event operated through Wedgewood Weddings.
“We’re very excited to create a certainly lovely place for other people to celebrate the peak moments of their lives in North Beach, operated through a nationally famous operator dating back to San Clemente,” Muhtaseb said of Wedgewood.
Jonathan Lightfoot, the city’s economic officer, estimates the dining room will be open until next summer, followed largely by the renovated theater.
The old bowling alley, Lightfoot noted, is “the asset component that will probably open first,” it was also “the component that had a lot more paints to make. “
After exploratory investigations revealed that the site was unsafe due to dry rot and mold, the structure’s teams dismantled the bowling alley last summer with the goal of having much of its physical tissue preserved and reincorporated into the new food court building.
“Bowling didn’t have the structural stability for the rehabilitation work,” Lightfoot explained at a Historical Society assembly this month. “Unfortunately, we had to make a call to see what elements are important. “
It has since been excavated as crews are lately building the basement of the dining room, where vendors will have a kitchen area to cook and prepare food. Soon, Lightfoot said, the frame will rise, making the bones of the old construction visible again. .
Echoing Muhtaseb, Lightfoot said that when the assignment is completed, the seller will be used through small businesses that have local ties to the network and the county, such as Zebra House. He’s already about to move, he added, there’s a hot bird from Nashville place to eat and pizzeria.
Getting North Beach back on its feet has been a procedure to say the least, Lightfoot said. Pointing to previous plans to rehabilitate key historic structures – the casino, the Ole Hanson Beach Club and the former Aquarium Cafe (now Landers) – he said: a lot of time and cash had been spent in the area.
The city and stakeholders have already begun to see some of those investments pay off, as North Beach was designated as a historic district last January, concluding a multi-year crusade for the domain to be identified on the National Register of Historic Places.
Subsequently, the city plans to complete the Miramar project, as well as the opening of the long-awaited Beach Hut Deli. They continue to stimulate economic activity in North Beach.
Dining features combined with entertainment activities like the Casino’s jazz nights, Lightfoot said, are what the city is to citizens and visitors alike.
“We are waiting for this to happen more. Just look for a smart connection and local occasions for the community,” he said.
However, he acknowledged, “once the dominoes fall, there will be a lot of residual effects from that area. For example, when you look at the parking lot.
According to Lightfoot, the city hasn’t noticed parking on the North Beach domain exceeding 50 percent, even in peak season hours, but one of the Coastal Commission’s approval situations in 2017 was that the Miramar developer conducted semi-annual parking studies. .
“Once they open, they have to report parking capacity every two years,” Lightfoot said. “They will have to send the knowledge to the Coastal Comproject indicating what the capacity looks like, because the component of their project (CCC) is to make sure there is parking available on the beach. “
This will be the explanation for why the city then, he said, to install more parking. One domain the city has already highlighted is the dirt box between Landers and the new deli. Another prospective lot includes city-owned land in the other aspect. of El Camion Real, just below Pico Park.
Lightfoot also expressed confidence in the Historic Society assembly that the city would integrate the streetcar system, as well as seek other features “that facilitate access to North Beach. “
In addition to parking, the city, he said, will also monitor potential innovations for pedestrians and lanes between sites as activity increases.
“North Beach is not a bigger pedestrian environment, so this is all we want for long-term capital improvement projects,” he said.
When the North Beach projects are completed, Lightfoot said there is hope the revitalization will create synergy with Marblehead’s coastal network and activities at the San Clemente Pier.
“We look forward to see only businesses coming back to life, but also that this is a domain where citizens can walk,” Lightfoot said, adding that “the historic district has been identified as an entertainment district: a dance pavilion, a park domain, things to be a focal point, the Beach Club, things that are just an audience get advantages and an educational value. We are very happy that this region is coming back to life. “
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