119,651 sq. ft. retail center under review

12.75 acres at the corner of Red Apple Ave. and Tucker Road

The commercial corridor of Tucker Road has come 119,651 square feet closer to build-out.

The Tehachapi City Council on Mar. 3 approved an agreement with Curtis Zacuto, principal of Westlake Village-based EcoTierra Consulting, to produce an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on a new shopping center called the Red Apple Pavilion.

Located on the west side of Tucker on Red Apple Ave. (the western extension of Tehachapi Boulevard), the near-120,000-square-foot retail center is a stone's throw from the site of the 165,000-square-foot Walmart that has been mired in environmental challenges for more than five years. Specially trained California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Judge Kenneth Twisselman has yet to stamp the final "OK" on the Walmart project.

Tehachapi Community Development Director David James told the City Council that on July 16, 2013, Encino-based Marc Carrolli of the Numbers Group filed to build the Red Apple Pavilion "power center" on 12.75 acres at the Tucker/Red Apple Ave. corner.

James said that Zacuto, who has worked with the city on its General Plan and on the Walmart EIR, will prepare a focused EIR utilizing the concept of "tiering" that allows lead agencies to utilize existing EIR studies and general plans.

James said that according to CEQA guidelines, "Agencies are encouraged to tier the environmental analyses which they prepare for separate but related projects including general plans, zoning changes and development projects. This approach can eliminate repetitive discussions of the same issues and focus the later EIR or negative declaration on the actual issues ripe for discussion at each level of environmental review."

The Red Apple Pavilion environmental review, therefore, will focus "on those environmental issues that are site and project specific and were not adequately addressed in the programmatic EIR certified in conjunction with the General Plan Update adopted on April 16, 2012."

The specific site issues Zacuto will analyze are:

• Traffic impacts

• Storm water runoff

• Archeological resources

• Biological resources

• Fiscal impact

• Noise impacts

• Mandatory and additional CEQA topics

In regard to the fiscal impact, the city staff report said, "Fiscal impacts are not a CEQA issue per se, however, the EIR should nevertheless include a fiscal impact analysis to determine the extent to which the revenue in the form of sales tax and property tax (that) will accrue to the General Fund will outweigh the cost of the city in providing services."

In its location on the corner of the busy intersection fed by Fwy 58 off-ramp traffic on State Route 202 and Tehachapi's main street, the pavilion, shown in its architectural rendering as presenting the sign "Welcome to Tehachapi," may become the unofficial Tehachapi welcome image. Unlike the Tehachapi Junction center directly to the east, where Starbuck's is located, the Red Apple Pavilion appears to offer a friendly face outward.