After 60 years, the City of Carson’s dream of developing one of the largest tracts of undeveloped land in Los Angeles County may come true as long as there aren’t any more setbacks.

 

The property, also known as 157 Acres, was the former location of the Cal Compact Landfill and has been sitting empty for decades due to the difficulty of developing the contaminated land.

A plan for a 400,000-square-foot luxury outlet mall has been in the works on-and-off for five years while the Carson Reclamation Authority (CRA) and developer Cam-Carson LLC, a joint venture between developers Simon and Macerich, have struggled to stay out of the courtroom and build the mall.

However, the legal battle has come to an end with the termination of all development agreements. The settlement agreement was reached on Monday, Oct. 27 following a mandatory settlement meeting. It was agreed that Cam-Carson would receive a $35.1 million payment from the CRA – a cost the city was able to avoid by recruiting another developer to pay the settlement money in exchange for the right to negotiate an agreement with the CRA for the property – and both parties would go their separate ways.

“Today is a great day in that we are in the process of moving the city forward,” said Carson Mayor Pro Temp Cedric Hicks during the Oct. 22 CRA meeting following discussion of the settlement agreement. “For the 157 acres, it’s been a blight in our community for over 50 plus years and I think at some point in time, we finally got the right recipe to bake this cake andmake it rise.”

A Tumultuous Partnership

The Cal Compact Landfill only operated for six years, but left behind hazardous waste pits that have compacted and enclosed over the decades. Because of the level and cost of environmental remediation that would be needed in order to develop on the property, developers have been reluctant to touch the land. Multiple projects have fizzled out over the years including a potential NFL stadium and large shopping centers.

Cam-Carson was the first developer willing to tackle the project and reached an agreement with the city in 2018 to build a luxury outlet mall on the property. The outlet mall was to be built on a 46-acre portion of the site referred to as “Cell 2,” and was expected to provide 1,700 construction jobs and 1,800 permanent positions at the mall. It was also projected that the city would receive over $5 million in additional sales tax revenue.

Two years later, however, the level of contamination discovered increased the cost of remediation, and the CRA and Cam-Carson couldn’t agree on who should foot the bill. This resulted in the first in a string of lawsuits, with Cam-Carson filing an $80 million lawsuit against the city for “a pattern of astonishingly gross financial and project mismanagement,” the 2020 lawsuit said.

The city has maintained through the years that they remained transparent with the developer about known remediation costs and the terms of their contract.

Things seemed to be looking up in Oct. 2022 when an agreement was reached to pause litigation and Cam-Carson would take on the remediation burden. And, in Dec. 2023, the Carson City Council passed an economic development benefit agreement with Cam-Carson, providing $26 million to the company to continue work on remediating the land.

Cam-Carson was granted a review period to decide whether they would continue with the project or not, and in June 2024 they sent a letter informing the city they would be pulling out of the project. However, because of how much money had already been dumped into the project, litigation continued for over a year in an attempt to determine which party owed the other money.

According to former reporting by The Daily Breeze, the city and the CRA invested almost $100 million and Cam-Carson invested over $80 million, but there had been former lawsuits from the city claiming they are owed over $12 million of “carrying costs” that they maintained during litigation that Cam-Carson should have been responsible for.

After this settlement, however, both parties will be walking away without having to pay anything, other than their own legal bills.

Looking Forward

While the site has been greatly remediated, no construction has taken place and it is unknown whether the new developer, whose name has not been publicly released, will continue with a similar luxury outlet mall project.

While the development of these 40 acres have been in limbo, work on the rest of the 157 Acres site has been in full swing. Another developer, Goose Owner LLC, is developing the other 96 acres dubbed Carson Place which will feature retail, restaurants and a performance stage. There will also be a 12-acre park and six industrial buildings.

This project has been proceeding as planned with construction already underway.“For many years, the City of Carson and the Carson Reclamation Authority have been thoughtful, committed, and diligent partners,” said Brendan Kotler, Faring’s chief investment officer on behalf of Good Goose Owner LLC in a written statement. “As good stewards of the land, the CRA has always put the interests of the residents first.”

The settlement agreement and mutual release will be presented and filed for transparency reasons at the Monday, Nov. 3 CRA meeting and new development plans will be reviewed in future meetings.