CITY FOCUS:

How would you like to live at the Bella Terra shopping center? DJM Capital Partners, the company that shepherded the original shopping center to completion, hopes to make that happen in the coming years.

Once called Bella Terra II, the plan is now known as the Village at Bella Terra: a proposed 15-acre mix of condos for sale and rent, and high-profile retail spots like an Apple store and gourmet grocery store, with maybe even a 10-story luxury hotel.

As a public comment period for the Village at Bella Terra nears its close April 15, the developer is feeling confident about its plans to weave trendy mixed-use living and higher-end retailers into its successful shopping center by the 405 Freeway.

“It will allow someone to live in a great environment but also have the ability to walk to all of these associated services around it,” DJM principal partner Lindsay Parton said. “Someone can do grocery shopping and make dinner, go out to a movie, and go across the street to go work out without having to get on the freeway and drive anywhere.”

The Village fits in very nicely with the city’s plans to revitalize Edinger Avenue, Economic Development Director Stanley Smalewitz said. To make it fit even more closely, the city and the developer have weekly meetings to fine tune the design, he said.

“To me it’s no accident” to place the new development next to the first, he said. “It showed there was a market there.

“But when you look at what the Village is, really in a lot of ways it’s aimed at a different customer.”

Parton said designers had worked hard on plans for entertainment and park areas that would give the new development a strong sense of public space.

“It’s a great relaxing feel of water features and places to lounge and sit,” he said. “There will be music venues, a lot of entertainment venues. It’ll all happen in this one central area, and food and other kinds of retail will look onto it.”

The project takes over the Montgomery Ward building, an empty complex just west of the mall on Edinger.

The project hasn’t seen organized opposition, city officials said. A meeting to take public concerns about the project’s impact drew a very small number of attendees.

Parton said most of the housing will be rentals, as they haven’t been hit very strongly by downturns in the housing market.

Smalewitz said that like other mixed-use developments in the area, the Village at Bella Terra is actually being planned at a good time. With the permit process going on during a downturn, it likely won’t be ready for business until things start looking up.

“Historically the real estate market is cyclical,” he said.

“Your success is based where you come in on the cycle. If you time it so things are coming back up, you tend to do pretty well.”