Council approves Ganahl move, expansion
Citing Ganahl Lumber’s positive contributions to the community, the Costa Mesa City Council on Tuesday approved the business’ request to build a new facility despite complaints from property owners that the new location would be “mega” and disruptive.
Last month, the city’s Planning Commission gave the Anaheim-based hardware and lumber chain permission to build a new facility on a 6.6-acre site at 1100 Bristol, down the street from Ganahl’s current store at 1275 S. Bristol.
The unanimous approval from planners, however, was soon appealed by office building owners whose primary objection was that a larger Ganahl Lumber would be an incompatible addition for the area.
On Tuesday, the council by a 4-0 vote — with Councilman Gary Monahan absent — approved Ganahl’s plan for four new structures totaling about 106,000 square feet, roughly twice the size of the existing store at 1275 S. Bristol, which will close when the new facility opens.
Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer called Ganahl’s plans a good fit for the area, adding that the office buildings’ qualms were “a bit overheated” because Ganahl has already been operating for some time nearby.
Attorney Michael H. Leifer, representing the owners of 1027 Bristol St., who are among those who contested the plans, contended that the proposed Ganahl project would be more like a noisy lumberyard than a retail store and thus shouldn’t be permitted in the area.
“This is not a hard call with regards to use,” Leifer said. “You have office buildings across the street.”
Joe Miller, owner of 1027 Bristol, said Ganahl would represent “heavy use.”
“It’s an industrial use,” he said. “It’s not complementary to office building use. That’s why zoning laws are set the way they are — to protect property owners.”
Ganahl Lumber CEO Peter Ganahl said his family-run company is thinking long-term and plans to be in Costa Mesa for decades. The county, which owns the 1100 Bristol property, approved a 63-year lease for Ganahl to operate there.
“We are not a mega, publicly traded corporation with orange buildings spread across the land and a tall building headquarters in a distant city,” Ganahl said.
Ganahl said the Costa Mesa location is not a lumber mill, though it will accommodate finishing work on some projects.
Ganahl took over the Bristol Street store in 1998. Before then, the site had been Barr Lumber, which started business there in the 1970s.
Kyle Woosley, Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce president, urged the council to support Ganahl, which he said is one of the top 25 revenue-generating companies in the city.
Ganahl’s new facility is expected to add as many as 40 jobs to the 80 at the current site, according to city staff. Construction is scheduled to start this summer.
Councilwoman Katrina Foley said she is glad that the 1100 Bristol St. property will no longer be vacant. In recent years, she said, it had been used for storage purposes that made it a “blight” along the corridor.
“I actually think this is a quality project,” Foley said. “I appreciate Ganahl is choosing Costa Mesa.”
*
Call for unity
During the meeting, Councilwoman Sandy Genis noted that it was the four-year anniversary of the suicide of a 29-year-old city maintenance worker, who jumped off the roof of City Hall.
A small remembrance session was held outside City Hall on Tuesday afternoon in Huy Pham’s memory.
“I would hope that here, four years later,” Genis said, “we not only pause to remember Huy Pham, but we try to rebuild the bridges, to heal the rifts, to heal the wounds, to stop the ongoing name-calling and bickering and basically people on Facebook trying to score a wound on someone else.”
