Part of the Redondo Beach waterfront will finally get a new look — and as soon as next year.
The California Surf Club, an indoor-outdoor, 21,000 square-foot compound adjacent to the Seaside Lagoon, is set to open in 2024 at 239 N. Harbor Drive.
It’s being developed by Allen Sanford, who created the BeachLife Music Festival. which premiered in 2019.
The surf club and a new restaurant in South Redondo Beach have given Sanford and investors a path to transforming BeachLife from a music-only brand to an all-encompassing cool, hip and coastal lifestyle brand. And the festival and surf club concepts combined are giving the aging South Bay waterfront renewed purpose.
Sanford wants to create a home for the community rooted in “good conversations, good vibes and good views; just living the beach life every day,” he said while presenting the approved plan at this week’s City Council meeting.
“The goal is for you to spend the whole day at the harbor,” Sanford said. “Maybe not the whole day at the surf club, but that’s your home base.”
The city’s Harbor Commission approved the project a year ago.
And, Sanford said in a Thursday, Dec. 14, interview, the surf club concept doesn’t need Californial Coastal Commission approval. That’s because two old buildings — a Ruby’s restaurant and On the Rocks — are being repurposed, with exterior walls remaining, to create a surf shack vibe for the club.
“I think there’s a story in every building,” Sanford said by phone. “I want to keep some of that history.”
The interiors of the buildings have been completely gutted, Sanford added, as demolition began about three weeks ago. Had they razed exterior walls, he added, it could have taken up to two years just to get plans approved.
The land for California Surf Club is being leased from Redondo Beach as part of a public-private partnership Sanford added. It’s an 11-year lease, he said, but he is in active conversations to extend that.
“We…
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