The nursery has been at its present location on Trancas Canyon Road for 22 years.
By Meg Boberg / Special to The Malibu Times
A 30-day eviction notice has been served to Malibu Gardens Nursery on Trancas Canyon Road, located behind HOWS Trancas Market, after being in business for nearly three decades, and 22 years at its current location.
The Trancas mall has been under new ownership since August. However, it is not known whether developer Dan Bercu still has an interest in the property. Several calls to Bercu went unreturned the past week.
Bercu last year had halted plans to expand development at the site off Pacific Coast Highway and Trancas Canyon Road after a local resident filed a lawsuit to stop it.
Construction has since resumed and the $20-million project will add new stores and two restaurants, and should take two years to complete. The Chicago-based architectural firm Kibo now heads the development.
[Correction, 4/14/011: Burdge & Associates is the architectural firm that has designed and is working on the Trancas Mall. Kibo Group of Santa Monica is a managing partner in the development.]]
Higher lease fees for the businesses at the site have been prohibitively costly for small businesses, having tripled in the past year, which has pushed out other establishments, including flower and home decor shop Sea Lily.
Malibu Gardens Nursery co-owner Debbie Stone said she and co-owner Carlos Cabrera are willing to pay any money owed by the previous owners of the nursery, who allegedly did not pay lease money for more than a year, but they said their offer has been rejected. The two took over ownership of the nursery last Austust, and changed the name to Trancas Canyon Nursery. Stone and Cabrera were told a garden center would be needed once the Trancas mall project is completed, but it may not be theirs.
Manager Shelby Basso, who last month was given The Malibu Times 2010 Citizen of the Year Dolphin Award for her contributions to the community, has worked for the garden center for many years.
She said the local community has strongly opposed the Trancas mall project and the eviction of the garden center.
“The whole neighborhood is going crazy, they’re so upset with this,” Basso said.
Rachel Roderick-Jones, a shopper at the quirkily colored nursery, said she is shocked and saddened by the news of the eviction and one more Malibu institution being forced out.
“It is not just a place to buy plants and veggie packs for the garden,” Roderick-Jones said. “[Malibu Gardens] is the life in that shopping center. The nursery has given so much to every sector of this community: hosting Friday night community potlucks where anyone could show up and shoot the breeze with your neighbors, often with live music, a place to wed, plants to borrow for an event, trucking thrown in, heaps of knowledgeable advice on gardening and conversation on any random topics is always part of the M.O. at the nursery.”
Before the nursery closes, Stone will work with her team to move their plants, animals and inventory to a new location, which she said would be virtually impossible in the limited time frame.
“We’ve been there a really long time,” said Stone, who has worked at the nursery since it opened at its first location on Busch Drive before moving to Trancas Canyon Road. “We’ve had a lot of customer support and people are upset, and it does upset me that we helped when everyone complained.
“We said we’re going to stay, and I could kick myself for saying that now,” Stone continued. “It’s not just a job to me. We have animals there I’ll have to find homes for. It’s a really nice place, and it’s really too bad they want to come in and bulldoze it and start fresh. It’s my livelihood, and other peoples’.”