Tuesday, November 15, 2005
18 embarrassing years of vacancy, erosion
Here’s to Richard Lee, Steve Delson, Pastor Pondo, Terry Hirchag and all those who wanted to do more than just dream.

Richard Lee had a dream. It’s just another busted bubble now. One of many involving the apparently cursed property, but it sounded sensational in November of 1999 when he announced at a news conference that he’d purchased the long-abandoned Miramar Theater, and the next door neighboring also long-closed bowling alley, and the equally faded and deserted onetime Sebastian West Dinner Theater. He planned to turn the three of them into a super mod new complex to be called “Chi By The Sea.”

At the time, the Miramar had been shut down tight and crumbling away for 10 years. Owner of the China Healthways Institute, Lee envisioned transforming the three historic properties into a combination science center with classrooms, convention hall and a bed and breakfast inn with meditation gardens, a gorgeous fountain in a park-like setting complete with a pedestrian promenade.

The artist’s rendering of Chi By The Sea with all its lush landscaping and nearly a dozen palm trees was breathtaking. Lee intended to make it all available for both public and private interests. When the inn wasn’t filled with students and clinic guest speakers, it would be available to the public just a few strides away from the ocean at North Beach and also the Amtrak and Metrolink dock. But one red tape block after another sidetracked the project and Lee finally settled merely for turning the dinner theater that actually had begun life in 1928 as the Casino Dance Hall into the Chi Institute and sold the Miramar and bowling alley.

Next dreamer, please.

In November of 2001, developer Steve Delson, onetime chief operator of the Mission Viejo Company, paid Lee $1.95 million for the theater and bowling alley and announced he planned to turn the battered relics just off the corner of El Camino and Pico into a restaurant plus retail stores, offices and maybe even senior housing.

"It’s time for the Miramar to become something besides an historic eyesore," said Delson, who promised he’d save some of the architectural features of the Miramar such as the Spanish Colonial tower and even retain the name of the theater and as much of the style of the building as possible.

But once again it was a case of block, block and block. Rae La Force, long one of the San Clemente Historical Society’s preservation leaders, issued the society’s typical lament in challenging all the dreamers. "I think it would be a tragedy," she was quoted as saying in response to Delson’s blueprint. "Such an important part of this city is its history and every time we lose a building we’re shooting ourselves in the foot."

At a Historical Society meeting at the Community Center in July of 2003, the "saving" of the Miramar again took center stage. Pastor Pondo Vleisides, lifetime San Clementean and leader of the San Clemente Evangelical Free Church, stepped up to the plate with his dream, which was to restore the Miramar as it was and use it as both a Performing Arts Center for the public and as a meeting place for his church members on Sundays.

"We’d like to buy the property and keep it exactly the way it looked," Pastor Pondo said that hopeful day. "And we’d keep the bowling alley just the way it was, add some windows and maybe a play yard. We also want to keep it as a fine arts theater, reduce the seating from 650 to about 500 so we’d have a proper backstage area, and have plays there. I want to preach in the setting of ’Oklahoma’ and ’South Pacific.’"

Pastor Pondo was warmly applauded by the society members, but the Planning Commissioners present that day weren’t as enthusiastic in commenting that their vision for the renaissance of North Beach is pointed in another direction such as restaurants and offices and retailers rather than a church. A Viewpoint letter worried that the church idea was merely a cover for a homeless shelter.

"I worked for a low-income community that was adversely impacted by a shelter operated by the Salvation Army and funded by the county," the Viewpoint writer warned. "While the facility did good work, some of its clients left during the day and hung out at our park. Our residents were accosted. We had reports of sexual activity in the park. And we received complaints of shelter residents eyeing young boys changing in the locker room at our city pool."

A rumor monger’s plant, no doubt, ridiculous, but another sample of all the low-blow opposition that seems to smother any attempt to do something intelligent with the Miramar that has now been vacant and falling apart for 18 embarrassing years.

Still, the dreamers keep dreaming. Terry Hirchag, latest owner, has a terrific blueprint to raze both the forlorn recently fire-scarred theater and bowling alley and replace them with an attractive "gateway complex" to San Clemente that would feature an upscale restaurant, several townhomes, an art gallery and space for retailers and professional offices. He’s a developer with outstanding credentials. "I’ll promise you one thing," he told me on the phone. "If they let me do it my way, it will be the most beautiful building in San Clemente."

I talked with Terry the morning after the Historical Society’s most recent "Celebration of the Miramar" Nov. 6 at the Talega Swim Club. He plans to announce the full details of his project shortly after Thanksgiving, and he’s going to give me a preview peek at the drawings this week. In other words, I’ll be right back with still another chapter on why and how we should and must finally terminate all this lingering misery and agony. If it takes Burn-Baby-Burn, so be it. Anyway, here’s to Richard Lee, Steve Delson, Pastor Pondo, Terry Hirchag and all those who wanted and want to do more than just dream.

"I’ll promise you one thing. If they let me do it my way, it will be the most beautiful building in San Clemente."
Terry Hirchag.

John Hall