Flawed Fortress on a Hill

   The draft of the new Santa Monica Civic Center Specific Plan is now making the rounds of the relevant City boards and commissions for comment and recommendations before being reviewed by the City Council at its next meeting on Tuesday, January 22.
   Given the way things work in City Hall and the fact that three Council members –- Richard Bloom, Ken Genser and Kevin McKeown -– are also members of the Civic Center Working Group, The Council will probably approve the plan, but it should reject it because it is profoundly flawed.
   Rather than improving on what is there – a loose and easy gathering of distinctive buildings, lawns, gardens, stands of trees and parking lots, the Group has tarted it up with a dense, rigid arrangement of somber buildings and formal parks which looks like nothing so much as a fortress – wholly aloof, separated from the rest of the city by a moat of traffic.

   The Principal Flaws:
   1. The plan would end Main Street south of City Hall, and extend Second Street south across Colorado Avenue, over the Santa Monica Freeway and into the Civic Center.
   One of the most pleasing spans of asphalt in Santa Monica is the long curve of Main from Pico to Colorado. It is also a vital north-south route. Its elimination would further clog both Ocean Avenue and Fourth Street.
   In the late 1970s, the City permitted the Rouse Company to build Santa Monica Place, ending any possibility of connecting the Civic Center and downtown Santa Monica in a pleasing and cohesive way. The current owner of the mall, Macerich, has agreed to work with the Group’s consultant, ROMA Group, on its possible redesign or reconfiguration. To make any changes in Main Street, much less loping it off, without knowing what changes Santa Monica Place may undergo is at least short-sighted.
   Furthermore, to lop off one street and extend another would be both dumb and expensive.
   2. Rather than rehabbing and converting the City Hall space now occupied by the Police Department and the City Jail into office space for City staff, the plan would build a new 20,000 square-foot $26 million “City Services” building squarely across the northern end of Main Street, on the south side of the Freeway.
   We are devoted to the restoration and preservation of the city’s most distinguished buildings, and City Hall is perhaps the most distinguished building in the city. But we cannot justify, much less condone the City’s plan to demolish the 1958 addition, which houses the PD in the name of faithfully restoring the building. Not only was the addition well-done and compatible with the original building, it has plenty of history of its own. Furthermore, such a radical alteration would have to be done very artfully and the City’s track record on “artful” is dismal. The estimated total cost of “restoring” City Hall and building the new City Services building is $60 to $70 million. It’s madness to spend many millions to destroy existing offices and more millions to build new ones, when the City could increase its office space significantly for a fraction of the cost.
   3. Rather than rehabbing and converting the existing RAND Corporation buildings into housing and/or City offices, the plan calls for the demolition of the RAND buildings and the construction of 300 units of new housing on the western edge of the Civic Center along Ocean Avenue.
   Again, though the cost of converting the existing RAND buildings to City uses would be many millions less than building new buildings and could be done much more quickly, the Group didn’t even bother to explore it.
   4. Stating emphatically, “playfields for large groups or organized sports should not be allowed,” the plan would create eight park/open space areas, including a 6.6-acre park in the southeast corner of the Civic Center and a 3.6-acre park in the northwest corner -– either of which could accommodate several playing fields for the thousands of Santa Monica kids who participate in sports programs.
   As we reported last week, the city suffers from a severe shortage of playing fields and because it’s virtually built out, it has an equally severe shortage of places to put new playing fields – thanks, in large part, to bad decisions made over time by both the City and the School District. The District handed over a major portion of Samohi’s playing fields to Doubletree Suites. The City and the District collaborated on the carving up of Los Amigos Park and its playing fields on very dubious grounds. The District leased the Madison School, and its wide open parcel of land to Santa Monica College.
   To arbitrarily forbid playing fields in the Civic Center is unreasonable and unfair. Unless the Santa Monica Civic Center is to be an “adults only” zone, it must include places and activities for Santa Monica’s children. Second, the sight and sounds of kids playing soccer, softball, baseball and the like would immeasurably improve the area –- infusing it with the kind of movement, color, exuberance and excitement that children bring to any precinct. As Steve Mount told the Mirror last week, “There’s no more vibrant use for a space than kids at play.” (see second editorial this page.)
   5. The Civic Center Working Group began its deliberations in April and concluded in October. What’s the rush?
   Work on the new Civic Center can’t get underway, according to City officials, for four years – or until the RAND Corporation moves out of its present quarters and into its new headquarters.
   6. The City’s list of Capital Improvement unfunded or underfunded projects is long and growing longer: New Main Library, $5 million; Virginia Avenue Park, $4.3 million; 415 PCH, $8.3 million; downtown design elements, $1.4 million; Airport Park, $800,000; Exposition bike path, $660,000; renovation of the Senior Center, $2.2 million; breakwater, $1.8 million; Santa Monica Pier ramp $2.5 million; 20th and Cloverfield, traffic improvements, $1 million; retrofitted and rehabbed parking structures, $90 million; and Corporation Yards master plan, $50 million. That’s 12 Capital Improvement projects, totaling about $170 million.
   Shouldn’t we fulfill some of those promises before adding a new $120 million project to the list –- especially a project as flawed as the Civic Center Plan?
   For all these reasons, and our abiding preference for sense over hubris, we urge the Council to surprise itself, and us, by sending this one back to the drawing board.