Former Site of Charity to Be Razed for Retail Complex

More than a year after World Vision U.S. moved out of Monrovia and took hundreds of jobs with it, demolition has begun on the charity’s former headquarters to make way for a hotel, retail stores and restaurants, city officials said Thursday.

City Manager Don Hopper said the site along the Foothill Freeway at West Huntington Drive will be combined with another property to provide 5.2 acres for development of a 130-room hotel, a dozen stores and two restaurants.

As an incentive for developer A/M Gateway Associates to consider Monrovia over neighboring cities, Hopper said he will ask the City Council next week to approve providing $390,000 toward purchasing the adjacent site at Huntington and 5th Avenue, he said.

“In less than two years we will recover that money in sales tax,” Hopper said.

The city expects to net $310,000 a year from the new complex. As a tax-exempt charity, World Vision did not pay property taxes, Hopper said.

The complex is slated to include Homestead Village, an extended-stay hotel and Macaroni Grill, an Italian restaurant, as well as 30,000 square feet of retail space, city officials said.

“This is the gateway to Monrovia. It is a very important project,” said Glenn Cox, assistant executive director of the city redevelopment agency.

Construction is slated to begin this summer with completion scheduled for next year, Cox said.

The development group includes Larry Mielke, a former general partner in Pasadena’s Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel, and Dennis Alfieri, a partner in Pasadena’s Twin Palms restaurant.

Last month, the Gateway group paid World Vision about $4 million for the site and has already sold 1.9 acres of the property to Homestead hotels.