Residents Start Hammering Out Mall Redevelopment

By Gene Williams

March 14 -- Put the parking underground and keep the buildings under 100 feet high. Add a few hundred offices, condos and apartments above nearly 500,000 square feet of retail shops and eateries and build the whole thing around a pedestrian friendly zone that links the Downtown with the Civic Center.

That was the theme -- with a few variations -- echoed by some 100 city residents who got the chance to play developer at a workshop Sunday to hammer out future plans for Santa Monica Place. A second workshop will take place at Grant Elementary School Monday night.

During the four-hour workshop, co-sponsored by the City and the owners of the struggling indoor mall, residents shared ideas and concerns, and then, in small groups, were given a blank slate to construct their visions with wooden blocks and paper.

Building consultant Daniel Icofano (right) helps participants develop their plan. (Photos by Gene Williams)

“This is really promising,” said Jeff Mathieu, Director of the City’s Resource Management Department, who will end up negotiating whatever deal needs to be made between the City and Macerich Company.

“Four different groups talked about what those ten acres could be for the community at large,” he said, adding that, if future workshops come up with similar ideas, then “some variation of it will be do-able.”

“They recognize that we’re in the urban core,” he said.

Sunday’s community workshop kicked off a 90-day process to gather community input that will help the City and Macerich Corporation -- which bought the shopping center five years ago -- decide what should be done with the ten acres of prime Downtown real estate.

The 25-year-old mall designed by Frank Gehry would be torn down and replaced.

“Although each comment we receive brings us closer to a final design, it is important to also recognize the realities that come with this opportunity; specifically, our contractual obligations to the retailers currently residing in the mall and our responsibility to follow the core principles the City Council has tasked us with,” Macerich officials said in a statement released after the meeting.

The meeting began with short presentations from the City and Macerich officials before residents were given a chance to voice their questions and concerns.

Pedestrian friendly walkways, preserving the human scale and encouraging small businesses that serve the community were themes that came up repeatedly. But traffic congestion was the concern most often heard and the one no one had an answer for.

“Whatever we do, traffic and parking issues have to come first,” said Sunset Park resident Tom Cleys. Others agreed.

Roger Genser, an Ocean Park resident of 28 years feared that redeveloping the mall “is only going to exacerbate the traffic problem.”

The mall’s proposed redevelopment needs to be tied to the City’s current update of its General Plan, which sets City-wide guidelines for future zoning ordinances and is expected to take two years to complete, said Genser, who chair’s the Landmarks Commission.

Participants view their ideas.

Others came to voice their opposition to high-end stores and high-rise buildings, which were a hotly-charged feature of an initial proposal scrapped by the City Council in January.

“Everywhere big construction projects go on, the community suffers,” said one resident, afraid that higher buildings -- and rising property values -- would force him out of Santa Monica.

“They’re developing these stores for high-end purposes,” he said.

After breaking into groups, the participants wasted little time in deciding to extend the Third Street Promenade an extra block to Colorado Avenue and link it to the Civic Center.

But what to do with the parking – which the City will have to pay for -- was a tougher question.

At an estimated $30,000 per space, it would cost some $60 million to put all 2,000 existing spaces underground, Assistant City Manager Gordon Anderson told participants.

Yet, after much debate, that’s what all four groups elected to do in the end, deciding it made for the best use of the land.

Sunday’s workshop comes just seven weeks after the City Council rejected a plan by Macerich that included three 21-story condo towers totaling 300 units and told the developer to start again from scratch and involve the community.

Daniel Icofano, a building consultant hired to facilitate the public discussions, told Sunday’s crowd that the council wanted to “first of all hear from the community and see what happens.”

Participants view one of the plans presented at the end of the meeting.

Three more workshops will be held over the next eight days: Monday, March 14 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Grant School, 2368 Pearl Street; March 17 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Franklin Elementary School, 2400 Montana Avenue, and March 21 from 6 to 9 p.m. at John Adams Middle School, 2425 16th Street.

In addition, there will be ten smaller meetings, including one with the Bayside District Corporation, which operates the Downtown.

The information gathered at the workshops will be evaluated by City staff, Macerich officials, consultants and analysts, who will then craft a set of alternatives that will be presented with an analyses of their economic viability at a second round of workshops, probably sometime in May

City officials say it will be about six or seven months before they and Macerich will be ready to sit at the bargaining table.

“It is important to note that this is the first in many outreach activities in the coming weeks and the general consensus from the majority of Santa Monica residents is still to be determined,” according to the Macerich statement.