By Eddie Cota

Back on May 26, a city staff report warned that adding CAPO Public House's new liquor license and a Korean BBQ restaurant at The Groves could push parking there to its breaking point. Even so, the report went on to say parking was "adequate" and recommended approval.

By the time the City Council actually voted on it, at the public hearing on July 14, the warning was gone. On top of that, staff told the council a 5-story public storage development next door would add 42 more public parking spaces to ease the pressure even further.

Six days after the council said yes to the bar, that storage development got rejected by the Planning Commission.

So now The Groves has more traffic coming, and the backup plan the city was counting on isn't there.

What the council approved

On July 14, the council voted 4-0, with Council Member Cathy Warner absent, to let CAPO Public House at Rodeo 72 expand into Building 7, an empty building at Heritage Court. The new space comes with a full bar license — beer, wine, and liquor — plus arcade games, pool tables, and hours from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m., matching the Rodeo 72 food hall next door, which the same owners already run.

The warning that disappeared

The Groves was built with 749 parking spaces — far fewer than the 1,487 the city's own rules would normally require for a shopping center this size. That's allowed, because the center was approved under a rule that lets different businesses share parking if they're busy at different times. But it also means there's not much room for error.

Staff had two different parking studies done, by the same traffic engineering firm, about two months apart.

The first, from April 21, backed up the May 26 staff report. That report said two things at once: parking at The Groves was "adequate," but adding CAPO's expansion, the Korean BBQ restaurant, and full occupancy of the food hall "may result in parking demand at The Groves reaching maximum capacity."

The second study, from June 15, is what staff used when the council actually voted in July — and it showed parking was tighter, not more open, than the April version. Even so, the July report kept the word "adequate" and dropped the "maximum capacity" warning entirely.

Where council members pushed back 

Some of that tension came out anyway, in the questions council members asked.

Council Member Vicky Santana pushed Community Development Director Ben Pongetti on what "adequate" really means at the busiest hours. She asked if that number includes spaces all the way behind Stater Bros, far from Rodeo 72. 

Pongetti confirmed it does. The whole center is counted as one shared lot, broken into zones, but treated as a single total. "It's not absolutely full," he told her, "but you'd have to really search for a parking stall."

Santana didn't argue with the numbers. She argued with what they mean for someone trying to park there. "I just really do avoid it, and I'm sure others do too," she said, warning that if it keeps getting worse, "people are gonna give up" on visiting. 

Council Member Aida Macedo asked staff directly about the 738-space shortfall, reading the number straight from the parking study. Pongetti's answer: the shortfall was already accepted when The Groves was first built, and the shared-parking approach still checks out.

The city's backup plan 

Pongetti pointed to two things that aren't counted in the parking study's math. One was the Whittier Cruiser, the city's ride service. He said it "certainly alleviates some" of the parking demand, but confirmed there's no requirement to keep it running, and no new parking review would happen if it stopped.

The other was a five-story self-storage facility proposed for the lot directly across from Rodeo 72, at 12090 Whittier Boulevard, the site of an auto salvage yard that's operated there since the 1960s. The storage developer had signed an agreement in May to build 42 public parking spaces for Groves customers, in exchange for a piece of city-owned land along the property line.

The parking easement agreement itself was included in the July 14 meeting packet, showing the property owner and the storage developer were working together on a parking fix. No council member asked about it before the vote.

Pongetti called it "an escape valve... for some additional parking," and told the council that project would have its first hearing at the Planning Commission on July 20.

Five days later, it fell apart 

It didn't go the way you'd expect. On July 20, the Planning Commission voted 3-0 to deny the storage project.

Residents pushed back hard on the developer's account of its own outreach, and asked commissioners to scrutinize it closely. The applicant said it spent six weeks going door-to-door, holding 426 conversations with nearby residents, and found 92% supportive — backed by more than 300 signatures on a petition. The applicant also pointed to a 2025 presentation given to the Groves HOA board as evidence of community buy-in.

Current HOA board president Paul White said the presentation was never an official board meeting and that the board was never given a chance to comment on the project. "It was presented as if it was already a done deal," he told commissioners. 

Another resident and former board member went further, telling commissioners the HOA board never voted to approve or support it at all. 

Others said the petition signatures came from people asked to "save the dog park," a separate concern the project also addressed, not from anyone asked directly about supporting a five-story storage building.

Commissioner Luis Rodriguez, who made the motion to deny, said the project abandoned what the plan was supposed to protect: a walkable, community-focused space. 

Nothing is final yet 

CAPO's approval doesn't change because the storage project failed — the two were never legally tied together. But the "escape valve" the council was told about six days earlier no longer exists in the form it was described.

A Planning Commission denial like this can usually be appealed by the applicant to the City Council, so this may not be the final word. Ultimately, it's the council that will decide whether to uphold the commission's denial or take up the matter for further discussion.

Whittier Informed will keep following both stories — what happens next with the storage project, and how parking at The Groves holds up as CAPO's new lounge and a Korean BBQ restaurant get ready to open.