Bracing for Construction<title>  <META content="Santa Monica Local News and information, housing, council meetings, police, schools, rent control, business, hotels, living wage, The Lookout, santa monica news, daily online news, surfsantamonica.com, california, los angeles, beaches, housing, politics, sports, real estate, westcoast, Santa Monica pier, Pacific Ocean, tourist, promenade, Westside, entertainment, community, parks, apartments, promenade, sound studios, rent control, entertainment, shopping, surf, surfsantamonica.com, santa monica surf, movie industry, film, sound, games, bollyball, rollerblading, santa monica mountains, westwood, brentwood," name=KEYWORDS> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1400" name=GENERATOR> </HEAD> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#000000" vlink="#333366" alink="#000000"> <table width="801" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td 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</tr> </table>  <table width="541" height="1825" border="0" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="521" height="1825" valign="top"> <p>By Jorge Casuso</p> <p>July 13 -- If you live, work or play Downtown, get ready to pull out your earplugs and chart out alternate routes, there’s plenty of construction coming down the planning pipeline.</p> <p> Starting with the proposed remodel of Santa Monica Place next Spring and wrapping up with the replacement of the California incline and the retrofit and widening of the pier bridge, both of them scheduled to take place in 2009, there will be plenty of hardhats in the Downtown area.</p> <p> Merchants, residents and Bayside officials are worried about the impacts all the work will have on traffic and parking and the noise it will bring. “We’re in tune with all three of these projects and will work with city officials to manage the impacts to the downtown district,” said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of Bayside District Corporation.</p> <p> Perhaps the biggest impact on the Downtown will come from the $9 million California Incline Replacement Project that will shut down the bridge that leads down to Pacific Coast Highway and one of the main arteries into the Downtown area. The work, scheduled to start in spring 2009 is expected to take ten months.<br> <br> “Certainly it's a route used to enter and exit the city,” said Mark Cuneo, the City’s principal civic engineer.<br> <br> At a public meeting June 20, residents of the Wilmont neighborhood, which abuts the northern edge of Downtown, worried that construction will snarl traffic in the area. They also worried that work crews will eat up street parking that already is in high demand.<br> <br> In addition, residents are concerned about construction noise and potential contamination. The demolition of the old bridge could release asbestos-related materials and lead paint and contaminate storm water runoff, according to the EIR issued May 23.<br> <br> Built in 1930, the bridge, which is mainly concrete, has developed cracks and breaks and is not up to current seismic standards, according to the report. Inspection reports in 1989 and 1994 found that the bridge needed to be replaced.<br> <br> When the incline closes, motorists wishing to access PCH will need to use either the Ocean Avenue ramp next to the pier or the 10 Freeway at Lincoln Boulevard, according to the EIR. Motorists also can head up Channel or Entrada at the north end of Santa Monica. City officials said they plan to work with Caltrans to discourage motorists from cutting through residential neighborhoods.<br> <br> The Bayside also could feel the impacts of a proposed project to seismically strengthen and widen the nearly 70-year-old pier bridge, as well as provide a link between the pier parking and the adjacent surface parking lot north of the pier.<br> <br> Although it is currently scheduled to start in 2009, pier officials said they do not expect the project to take place at the same time as the California incline. <br> <br> “The schedule for both projects has not been set,” said Ben Franz-Knight, executive director of the Pier Restoration Corporation. “Having them take place at the same time would not be a good idea.”<br> <br> With the EIR expected to go to the City Council this fall, it is too early to tell what specific impacts the project will have on the Downtown, Franz-Knight said. Much of that will depend on which of the five options the council chooses. (To view the full EIR, visit the <a href="http://santa-monica.org/planning/planningcomm/environmentalreports.html">Environmental Reports page </a>on the Planning and Community Development Department section on the City’s website.)<br> <br> “At this point it’s really hard to say what impacts the construction will have,” he said. “It will depend on which option is selected, and what the construction plans are.”<br> <br> So far, most of the comments to the draft EIR, which were due last September, have focused on access from the beach bicycle path and the potential historic status of the bridge, planning officials said.<br> <br> “We’re in the process of preparing the comments,” said City Planner Paul Foley. The comments will be presented to the City Council with the EIR.<br> <br> Meanwhile, Macerich’s plans to remodel Santa Monica Place are sailing along. On June 20, the Planning Commission enthusiastically embraced the proposed design that tears the roof and doors off the indoor mall and connects it to the Third Street Promenade. The proposed remodel also features an open-air center court and a third-floor food court overlooking the Pacific.<br> <br> The commission, which will not officially weigh in on the project, gave the modest remodel unusually exuberant praise.<br> <br> “I like the overall configuration,” said Planning Commissioner Darrell Clarke. “I like how it opens up. I like the curves. I think it’s gorgeous . . . I think you’ve done something special.”<br> <br> Under the new proposal, Macy’s department store, as well as the two public parking structures totaling nearly 2,000 spaces, will stay open during construction, which is slated to start next spring and completed by fall 2009, mall officials said.<br> <br> “We are anxious for Santa Monica Place to successfully complete their renovations,” Rawson said. “Bayside will also work closely with Macerich and the city to help mitigate the impacts of the construction.” </p> <p><em>Editor's note: This article also ran in the Bayside Beat, the monthly newsletter of the Bayside District Corporation</em>. </p></table>  <p></p></td> </tr> </table> </td> <td width="200"> <center> </center>  <table width="73" height="95" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="73" valign="top"><a href="http://www.readersjewelers.com/"><img src="/ssm_site/commerce/ReadersFineJewelers/ReadersFineJewery2.jpg" width="159" height="135" border="1"></a></td> </tr> </table>  <p align="left"> </p>  <h3 align="left"> </h3>  <p align="left"> </p>  <h3 align="left"><em><font color="#666666" face="Courier New, Courier, mono"> </font></em></h3> <h3 align="center"> </h3>  </div> <p align="left"> </p>  <h3 align="center"><font color="#666666" face="Courier New, Courier, mono"></font></h3>  <p align="left"> </p> </td> </tr> </table> <table width="700" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td width="691"><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"><table width="660" border="0"> <tr> <td valign="bottom" width="115" height="34"><a href="http://www.surfsantamonica.com/the_lookout.htm"><img src="/ssm_site/images/images-logos/icons-lookout.gif" alt="Lookout Logo footer image" width="115" height="26" border="0"></a> </td> <td valign="top" width="356" height="34"><font size="-1"><br> Copyright 1999-2008 surfsantamonica.com. 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