By Jonathan Friedman
Lookout Staff

October 19, 2010 -- At their meeting last week, City Council members for the first time formally addressed the concept designs for the $25 million park planned for the former RAND site between Ocean Avenue and Main Street. Although the City leaders gave their input, they all said they liked that this has so far been a community-involved process and wished to keep it that way.

City Council member Terry O”Day told officials from James Field Corner Field Operations, the New York-based designer hired for the project, that he had received good community feedback about the two project workshops, which attracted several hundred people.

“Everybody who’s gone out seems to think their ideas were heard and that ideas coming from your team were engaging,” O’Day said. “And that’s really encouraging to hear because frankly we don’t hear that about a lot of processes that we run in town here.”

The current name of the project is Palisades Garden Walk & Town Square, but even that could change. Council member Gleam Davis said she would like community input gathered on name ideas at future workshops. The project will include a six-acre park and a one-acre Town Square in front of City Hall. There are currently three concepts for the park.

The “Arroyo Wash” is described in the City staff report as having a “variety of fluid pathways and hills that appear to organically emerge from the entrance of City Hall, extending outward toward the City, Pier and beach.” The maximum height for the hills would be 15 feet.

The “Arroyo Ravine” includes a wide pathway between “two landform ‘hills,’ narrow at the entrance on Ocean Avenue and Colorado Boulevard and widening to a plaza on Main Street,” according to the staff report’s description. The hills would be up to 20 feet high.

The “Arroyo Dune” calls for an “animated and playful arrangement of earthwork forms and garden areas described as ‘rambles and niches,’” the staff report states. It continues, “The pathways are programmed for seating, strolling, and people-watching while landscaped areas are confined to the specific puzzle pieces of varied topographic forms and overlooks of a maximum height of 15 feet and contain multiple plant species.”

Several council members said they want the design of the park to have some connection to the nearby ocean. Mayor Bobby Shriver said he favors “a little feeling for wildness.” He described it as a park that is “less sculptural, apparently built stuff” and more of a “sculpture of the land, but looks like it was that way all along.”

Council member Kevin McKeown, a strong bicycle advocate, asked about bicycle use in the park. James Corner said his idea is to dedicate one lane for bicycles and rollerblades going through the park and another for them around the perimeter of the park.

“We’re trying to make sure that there’s no conflicts of use so that the path is discrete, that it’s clearly marked and bicycles and rollerbladers can move through safely without conflicting with pedestrians,” Corner said.

As for nearby Chez Jay Restaurant and the Ocean Lodge Motel, Corner said the new scheme “includes a way to incorporate them both that allows a way to have them serviced, allows their businesses to flourish, to relate to the park in a way, but not to be dominating over the park.”

Several council members, including Davis, said children’s play areas were important.

“We do have a dearth of parks in the city and we do have some wonderful play areas,” she said. “But we don’t have enough. The children’s play areas we have are always full, always vibrant. And I think they also create a wonderful feeling. There’s nothing that makes you smile like watching children have a good time.”

The next workshop will take place from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Nov. 13 at Santa Monica High School. Another presentation will go before the City Council on Dec. 14.