City Council to Colorado Boulevard Development

The Pasadena City Council is set to deliberate Monday on a recommendation by the Department of Planning and Community Development to restart the review process on a proposal to build a new 112,205-square-foot, five-story medical office and retail building at 550-566 E. Colorado Blvd. in the Pasadena Playhouse District.

The Planning Department is recommending that the call for review of the Design Commission’s approval of the application for Consolidated Design Review for the project be remanded to the Design Commission.

The application for the project, called the Crown City Medical Plaza, was submitted by The Charles Company, whose co-founder and co-managing partner, Arman Gabaee, was arrested by FBI agents in May 2018 on federal bribery charges.

The charges against Gabaee had nothing to do with the Pasadena project. Instead, Gabaee was charged with paying monthly bribes to a Los Angeles County employee for six years, and offering to buy the employee a $1.1 million home in Santa Rosa, in exchange for the developer obtaining a $45 million county lease, according to the FBI.

Gabaee, if convicted as charged, would face a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

According to an Agenda Report by the Pasadena Planning and Community Development Department, the project’s application for Consolidated Design Review was approved by the Design Commission on July 10, 2018, subject to 13 conditions for approval. On July 19, 2018, City Councilmember Andy Wilson initiated a request to call the Design Commission’s decision for City Council review.

The City Council, on July 23, 2018, voted to call the Design Commission’s decision for review. On that same date, the Downtown Pasadena Neighborhood Association submitted an appeal application to the City Council, citing several concerns with the DC’s decision. The appeal was subsequently terminated as a result of City Council’s call for review.

More recently, the applicant told Planning Department staff that they plan to substantially modify the approved design to accommodate a hotel use for the proposed building.

Because of this, the Department said the Design Commission should be allowed more time to review the revised design when an application is formally submitted. When the review process for the revised design is completed, the City Council would have another opportunity to call the Design Commission’s decision for review if necessary.

The 0.85-acre property where the project is planned to be built is currently being used as a large surface-area parking lot.