Redondo Beach has just seen a long-awaited new year’s resolution fulfilled.
The AES Redondo Beach power plant is no longer producing energy for the Southland. The AES Corporation decommissioned the generating station, which has operated for more than 100 years under various owners, on Sunday, Dec. 31 — something for which the city has spent decades lobbying.
It could still be quite a while, however, until the facility comes down and anything new happens on the 50-acre piece of land.
AES announced earlier this year that it’d stop using the Redondo Beach site at the end of the year. The plant ran on an as-needed basis, sending power throughout the state when demand called for it.
“It took us over 20 years,” Mayor Bill Brand said in a recent Facebook post.
The city celebrated the shutdown on Sunday afternoon — New Year’s Eve — with a ceremonial flip of a switch, symbolizing the plant never having to be turned on again.
“The retirement of the AES power plant,” the city said in a recent press release, “represents a significant step towards a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future for Redondo Beach, and the entire Santa Monica Bay.”
But the future of the space depends on when it’s owner, Leo Pustilnikov, gets an OK from the city to redevelop it into what he wants.
Pustilnikov, who bought the site in 2020, proposed in 2022 to build a massive mixed-use residential and commercial building in the power plant’s place. Redondo Beach, however, deemed the application incomplete and the developer filed a lawsuit to get the court to order the city to process the application.
The lawsuit, Pustilnikov said, will go to trial in March. He said he hopes to start redeveloping the power plant building sometime in 2024.
Besides being currently tied up with the city, AES’ lease precludes Pustilnikov from doing anything at the site for another six months or so, he added.
“AES is proud to have been part of this historic effort to…
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