No Place Like Home

By Erica Williams
Staff Writer

April 8 -- After more than a quarter century of wandering about Santa Monica, Emeritus College is poised to realize its dream of a permanent home for its legion of senior citizen students and their programs.

Move-in day to the new $8.65 million headquarters Downtown could come as early as June, with interior construction on the four-story, 24,000 square-foot facility at 1227 2nd Street set to start any day now and to wrap up in about 14 weeks.

Emeritus' new home ­- its 13th in 25 years ­- is just two-and-a-half blocks from the cramped quarters it currently occupies on the ground floor of public parking structure #6.

"This really is the culmination of my whole effort here," said Director Maggie Hall amid a seismic rumble of cars navigating the five stories of parking spaces above. (Hall has grown accustomed to the din and says she doesn¹t even notice it.)

Staying Downtown, Hall said, was crucial because there are plenty of things for seniors to do, including going to the movies and restaurants and attending health fairs and senior day, which take place on the Promenade.

“It was very important to stay Downtown,” Hall said. “It is very important for seniors to feel that they are fully involved in community activities. Like everyone else, seniors like to go to movies, sit outside at the cafes and watch people go by. They like to be where the action is.”

In addition, many seniors live nearby or can hop on the bus and come from practically anywhere in the city, Hall said. “Transportation is critical,” she said. “Forty-five percent ride the bus, and those who live Downtown can walk.”

Because the college does not have a cafeteria, its student body provides a boon for area eateries, Hall added. “People patronize all the coffee shops and restaurants they can afford,” Hall said. “All of those places have benefited from us being here.”

Hall, who has been with the school since its inception at Santa Monica College in 1975, recalls having to move a dozen times before settling into the ground floor of the Downtown parking structure seven years ago. She realized from the start that Emeritus -­ which currently serves more than 3,400 students whose average age is between 65 and 70 (the oldest is 101) ­- needed a permanent home.

"This has been a mission of mine almost from the very beginning," Hall said. "From the beginning I thought we needed to be able to control the use of the classroom... seniors need the permanency," she said.

The program's first home was a very tiny office -­ an old PBX switchboard room near the administration building on SMC's campus. From there, the college (which offers more than 180 classes of interest to seniors, most of them free) has knocked about on and off campus because of continued growth.

Off campus it has sometimes been subject to market forces and the whims of landlords. But the overwhelming passage of Measure U, a $160 million bond measure approved by more than 70 percent of Malibu and Santa Monica voters last year, finally made Hall's dream of a permanent home for Emeritus possible.

Last fall, the SMC Board of Trustees unanimously voted to purchase the spacious new building Downtown, making Emeritus’ new site the first of 14 projects funded by the measure.

"It was a pleasure to see that the Board of Trustees felt we should be the first project," Hall said.
"The commitment of the Board of Trustees was critical. They had a long-term vision to serve older adults."

The new Downtown facility will more than double the five current classrooms, which will be used as both exercise and lecture spaces. Emeritus also will gain a 99-seat state-of-the-art lecture hall, an art gallery and a conference room, as well as more office and public gathering space.

Despite finding a new permanent home Downtown, the school has no plans to move classes out of the city’s neighborhoods, where they are offered at 25 locations, including churches, libraries, parks, schools and Santa Monica Place, Hall said.

Although these are exciting times for Emeritus, State budget cuts to education are looming, and Hall expects cuts as much as 30 to 40 percent in programs for older adults. But she is hopeful for a reprieve from the state legislature.

"We've come back after Prop 13 cuts, and we'll come back after this," Hall said, referring to the 1978 law that limited property taxes. "I am ever the optimist that we will find some way to sustain the majority of the program.