Court Tells Plating Firm to Move : Ruling Boosts Development of Hazardous Waste Site

A quarter block considered one of the most important in downtown San Diego is slated for cleanup and redevelopment after a Superior Court order Tuesday that a metal plating firm vacate the site. The firm had been fined for illegally storing hazardous wastes there.

In addition to vacating the property, across from the southern side of Horton Plaza on Martin Luther King Way, Super Plating Inc. was ordered by Superior Court Judge Kenneth Johns to pay more than $21,000 in damages to the landowner, Starr Children Trust, ending months of litigation. That litigation was slowed by Super Plating’s filing for protection from its creditors under Chapter 7 of the federal bankruptcy statutes in December.

Thomas Monson, an attorney for the property owner, said Starr Children Trust will now clean up the site in order to develop it into a multi-use, high-rise building.

The Centre City Development Corp., the city government agency in charge of downtown redevelopment, has been negotiating with with Shapell Housing Inc. and Goldrich Kest & Associates to build a high-rise project that would bring shops, offices and apartments to the site.

Monson said it should take several months to clean up unsafe deposits of nickel, copper and other chemicals that had been stored on the property.

The cost of the cleanup could be as high as $400,000, and it will probably take another court decision to decide which insurance company will pay for the waste disposal, Monson said.

Officials from CCDC could not estimate how long it would take for work to begin on the high-rise.

“It could take a long time,” said a CCDC spokeswoman.

Problems at the site arose in August, when the San Diego County district attorney’s office filed felony charges of dumping hazardous wastes against Super Plating. Authorities began investigating the firm after a former employee told the county Health Department of the dumping.

Last month, Super Plating general manager Sandra Lazovich was fined $10,000 and sentenced to 60 days in a work furlough center after pleading guilty in Municipal Court to one felony count of disposing acid and sludge in a trash bin.

Thomas Nerat, the firm’s chief financial officer, was fined $5,000 and sentenced to 45 days on a work furlough after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

John Reaves, attorney for Super Plating, said Tuesday that the firm has no money to pay for the cleanup.