Major construction throughout Arcadia

It seems no matter which street you drive in Arcadia today, you will see major construction going on. Not only are many of the schools still under a seven-year quarter-of-a-billion dollar renovation project and City Hall is getting a terrific facelift, but here are just a few of the additional highly-visible projects:

1. Work is just beginning on a new Hale Medical Center on Huntington Drive across the street from Methodist Hospital on property owned by Santa Anita Park parent The Stronach Group. The official groundbreaking for the project from Dick Hale’s development company will be this Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.

2. Another medical center — a four-building campus — is beginning to be built being built near Peppers’ Mexican restaurant on Colorado Place just north of Huntington Drive by developer Mike Soo. 

3. Denny’s restaurant  makeover.
   

The former Van De Kamp’s building with the iconic windmill on the roof at the northeast corner of Santa Anita Avenue and Huntington Drive is getting a complete new red paint job on the dominating roof outside and apparently new carpeting and other renovations inside as well.

1. Rusnak Mercedes. After ten years of negotiations with the City of Arcadia, Rusnak Mercedes is finally expanding its Huntington Drive showroom and car lot to include a stretch along Santa Anita Avenue as well.
   

The buildings on the west side of Santa Anita Avenue, north of Morlan Place (the first street north of Jiffy Lube) were demolished a couple weeks ago and the ground is now being prepared for Rusnak to begin work on $10 million of improvements, including a large new showroom along Santa Anita Avenue.

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After completing the unprecedented public art bridge over the eastbound lanes of the 210 freeway last December and the second train bridge over Colorado Boulevard, the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority is in the midst of major work on Santa Anita Avenue between Fasching’s Car Wash and Goldstein’s Bakery. Where Santa Anita Avenue originally had to rise in a hump to reach the single set of tracks for the former freight train railway, now a bridge is being built to carry two sets of tracks for the light rail line. Instead of the hump in Santa Anita Avenue, drivers will soon make a dip under the bridge.

The four-lane road has been narrowed to one-lane each direction in recent weeks, only the two middle lanes. By the end of this month, the two inside lanes will be closed and drivers will be diverted to the outer lanes. Work will cease by late September through early November so as not to cause congestion for the additional traffic in town for the Santa Anita Park horse track Autumn Meet and Breeders’ Cup Nov. 1-2.

The lowering of Santa Anita Avenue will not happen until after the Autum Meet, when work will also begin on the third and final Gold Line bridge in Arcadia — a wider two-track bridge over Huntington Drive at Second Avenue. Meanwhile, preliminary work has begun on the new Gold Line station on the northwest corner of First Avenue at Santa Clara Street, across from 24-Hour Fitness.

— by Scott Hettrick