Commentary: City has power to save Crossroads project

This artist's rendering shows what Menifee Crossroads looks like in the eyes of the project's developers.

By Doug Spoon, Editor

Tanya Tabrizizadeh and her family members have dreams.

Some have been fulfilled. As owners of Denny’s restaurants in Murrieta and Wildomar, they have established themselves as successful business owners. Tanya is a member of the Murrieta-Wildomar Chamber of Commerce. And the success led to the family’s biggest dream – building a commercial center in Menifee.

Unfortunately, the dream has become a nightmare.

A project that was slowly grinding its way through the City of Menifee Planning Department looked so promising. Menifee Crossroads was designed as a 103,000-square-foot development to be built on nine acres of land at the northeast corner of Newport Road and Bradley Road. As planned, the center would include a specialty grocer (tenant not announced), a Denny’s restaurant, two retail shop structures and two office space structures.

According to a representative of the project, Crossroads would generate an economic benefit of approximately $39 million to the City and create nearly 350 jobs. The project had passed several plan checks and all systems were go.

“We had the entitlement, we had paid the city fees … we were ready to start building,” Tabrizizadeh said.

Then, Tabrizizadeh and others believe, the rules of the game changed.

Last summer, City planning officials added to the project the requirement that a raised median be built on Bradley Road heading north from the intersection and past a driveway entrance to Newport Plaza – a decades-old development across Bradley Road that includes Pitstop Pub, Giovanni’s Pizza Pasta & More, and Carnitas Express, in addition to doctor’s offices, a paint store, and a tire shop.

The Tabrizizadeh family, which had already agreed to pay about $1.5 million for street improvements on Bradley Road to address traffic issues, agreed to pay for a share of the raised median, even though it was not in the original plans that were approved. Then attorneys for the neighboring Newport Plaza announced plans to sue the family if they went forward with the project and the median, citing concerns about limited access to their center.

Family members, unwilling to risk an expensive lawsuit on top of the $2 million they have already invested, appealed to City officials for help – first with the Planning Commission and then the City Council. Was there a way for the City to resolve the issue, they asked?

After all, the median wasn’t even deemed necessary in the beginning. Did it really have to be in the plans? Or why couldn’t the City pay for the median itself? If City officials could prove the median was a safety issue, as they have suggested, wouldn’t they prevail in any lawsuit filed against them?

The City’s response: Build the project and pay for the median yourself. And the Tabrizizadeh family walked away, in shock and holding a piece of property that could’ve been so profitable for all involved.

Could it still happen?

“Right now, we have no hope,” Tanya said. “I can’t even put into words how stressful this has been. We are first-time developers. From Day One, we worked hand in hand with the City in meetings about what they felt the City needed in this. I’m sure a lot of developers don’t do that.

“It’s disenchanting, considering the journey we have taken to get here. This is a setback that will take us many years to recover from. It could’ve had so much economic benefit to the City. All we can hope for is a conversation with the City that includes a plan and leads to something.”

In an email to Menifee 24/7 last fall, public works director Nick Fidler was quoted as saying that although current traffic patterns do not require a median, the added traffic volume resulting from the new center would do so. That still doesn’t answer the question of why the median wasn’t considered necessary in the beginning, when former public works director Jonathan Smith signed off on the project.

All we know is that city manager Armando Villa forced Smith out, went months before hiring Fidler as his replacement, and suddenly the raised median was a requirement.

The whole situation appears to have put the City in an awkward position. In defending the median, Fidler and even council member Lesa Sobek have made statements about current safety issues on Bradley Road. How can City officials now let the Crossroads project fall away and not build the median themselves? That would seem to leave the City open to litigation in case of future accidents on that stretch of roadway. Meanwhile, millions in potential economic benefit are left on the table.

The ball, as they say, is in the City’s court. The Tabrizizadeh family believes they have done all they can with the resources they have.

Tanya said that when things got complicated, she and her family members were told by City officials to “think outside the box.” Shouldn’t the City be doing the same?