FALLBROOK: Citrus Plaza ready to phase in self-storage customers

Office space will be ready early next year, spokesman says

By TOM PFINGSTEN - Staff Writer | Saturday, October 11, 2008 4:40 PM PDT ∞

FALLBROOK ---- The first phase of the largest redevelopment project in Fallbrook's history is scheduled to open Monday, a key investor in the $9 million project said last week.

When the doors open, the four-story building will offer 240 mini storage units, ranging in size from 25 square feet to 300 square feet, said Larry Gabele, who has served as spokesman for the Citrus Plaza development the last several years.

Gabele said that the interior work on the 28,000 square feet of office space will take an additional 90 days.

"I have to pinch myself. It's taken basically six years for us to get this project under way," he said.

Occupying the block off East Mission Road between College and Beech streets, the multilevel building is modern in appearance while retaining much of the structure of a historical packing plant once housed there.

The mini storage slots take up 35,000 square feet ---- a little more than half of the building's floor space ---- with the basement and part of the first floor dedicated to self-storage.

Two and a half floors are being prepared to serve as offices, and several potential tenants are in the process of renting most of the available office space, Gabele said.

"We have other people looking at and making offers on the balance of the space," he said, adding that he couldn't reveal which businesses were pursuing spots in Citrus Plaza because the deals aren't final.

Rising from the ashes

The project, which was held up for several years in the permit process, aims to make a trendy new complex out of the shell of a citrus packing plant that burned down in 1991.

For 15 years, the concrete walls sat empty on prime downtown real estate, an eyesore along Mission Road.

Construction crews broke ground nearly two years ago, in October 2006, transforming the graffiti-prone site into the town's largest, most expensive redevelopment undertaking.

Bob Leonard, executive director of the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce, said last week that the plaza's opening should spell good news for the town's business community.

"A lot of people think economic development is bringing new companies to town, and that's really only about 30 percent of it," said Leonard. "The majority of economic development occurs in growth of existing companies."

He said several homegrown businesses have had to relocate because their owners couldn't find a large enough office building in Fallbrook.

This month, a software development company called Controltec moved its offices to Escondido because it outgrew the Main Street location it had occupied for several years, Leonard said.

"As companies become more successful, they can't find appropriately sized space (in Fallbrook), so they end up moving their business to Temecula or Escondido," he said.

Leonard said Fallbrook could probably use more offices, and emphasized that one reason he liked the Citrus Plaza project was that it took downtown's ugliest block and turned it into one of the most professional-looking parts of town.

"It's a very nice, comfortable-looking building, and therefore, it has to be heralded as not only the largest in square footage, but most importantly ... what they built is what we saw" in conceptual drawings before construction began, he said.

"That doesn't always happen in a very long project," he added.

Officials have been trying for years to spruce up the appearance of downtown Fallbrook, and plans are in the works for a new library, a visitor's center and several other visual upgrades in the years ahead.

Contact staff writer Tom Pfingsten at (760) 740-3516 or tpfingsten@nctimes.com.