By Lookout Staff
March 3 – A building in Downtown Santa Monica will be demolished to pave the way for a surface parking lot, despite the efforts of one Council member to turn the 25,335-square-foot structure into a temporary home for one of the city’s cash-strapped social service agencies.
The 5 to 1 vote gives crews the go-ahead to tear down the City-owned building at 1324 Fifth Street early next year. The property will be used as a surface parking lot for the next five years, while the City moves forward with an ambitious plan to add 1,7000 new parking spaces Downtown.
The only dissenting vote was cast by Council member Kevin McKeown, who argued that the City should consider offering the building, which has been empty for three years, to a non-profit willing to fix it up.
“This is an opportunity we should at least investigate instead of just tearing it down,” McKeown said. “A lot of non-profits are happy to have a space to work in… We should not be so hell bent on the wrecking ball.”
But staff told the council the City would need to pump some $400,000 to repair and replace major building systems, carpeting and flooring; paint the interior and exterior; remove mold, and complete other repairs.
The City would also have to spend another $100,000 to maintain the building, which the tenant would likely need to also spend money improving, staff said.
“Why would a non-profit want to spend $400,000 to rehab a building they would only use for five years,” said Council member Richard Bloom.
“I don’t think we need to restore it to that condition,” McKeown said. The tenant can spend money “just to clean up the building, fix up the roof, just basically make it habitable.”
In its report to the council, staff had argued against fixing and leasing the building, which was used to store the Main Library’s books and documents during construction of a new facility.
Staff noted that “the commercial leasing market in Santa Monica is very soft,” with the office vacancy rate reaching 12 percent during the fourth quarter of 2008.
“Given these market conditions, the City would likely demolish the building in the next few years as part of its broader downtown strategy, the leasing opportunity would likely attract only short-term tenants, and lease-up of the building could take several years,” staff wrote.
Instead, staff recommended that the City resurface the site, adding 25 new parking spaces to an adjoining 45,000-square-foot surface parking lot that currently has 108 spaces. The site can then be used as a staging area during construction of the first of three public parking structures that will be built in 2011.
The vote to tear down the structure came two weeks after the council gave the go-ahead to purchase a property on 5th Street for $5 million. The 9,943-square-foot building at 1334 5th Street, which presently houses Hershey Associates and Ezai Florists, would be torn down to make way for a new public parking structure.
Adopted in 2006, the City’s $180 million dollar Downtown parking plan calls for tearing down and rebuilding Downtown's three smallest public parking structures – structures 1, 3 and 6 – to add as many as 712 new spaces to the district. The plan also calls for building up to two new structures to bring in as many as 1,000 additional spaces.
The City's three largest existing structures – structures 2, 4 and 5 – will remain standing and are being retrofitted for earthquake safety.
The City plans to buy the 5th Street property with Redevelopment Agency funds earmarked for the Earthquake Recovery Redevelopment Project Area. The City is slated to get more than $60 million in earthquake redevelopment funds this year.
