Recycling Company Seeks Street Closures

A recycling company is planning an expansion that would add as many as 200 employees and will ask the City Council today to close parts of some city streets to make way for the project.

Taormina Industries Inc. said it plans to acquire property valued at about $10 million and add to its existing 300,000-square-foot facility at 1131 N. Blue Gum St. The streets involved, already surrounded by Taormina-owned property, are Gretta Lane and Coronado, La Mesa and Blue Gum streets.

New tax revenue from Taormina’s expansion is expected to equal or exceed the market value of the streets Anaheim is being asked to vacate, according to a report from the Community Development Department.

Also tonight, the council is scheduled to vote on an agreement calling for Anaheim and the city of Orange to help pay for construction of an Orangewood Avenue crossing in conjunction with widening the Santa Ana Freeway.

Federal and county funds would pay for most of the $8.3-million construction project. Anaheim and Orange would each pay $385,000 under the proposal.

Construction work on the Santa Ana Freeway between the Garden Grove and Riverside freeways is expected to begin in December and be completed by mid-2000.

Estimated cost of the work is $1 billion.

The City Council meets at 5 p.m. at City Hall, 200 S. Anaheim Blvd.