By Jorge Casuso
March 23 – The gateway to Downtown Santa Monica that has greeted motorists exiting the 10 Freeway for the past quarter century will get a “dramatic” makeover under a plan to replace the hulking old Macy’s Department store at Santa Monica Place with a sparkling new Bloomingdale’s.
The new design for the 151,000 square-foot space on the corner of 4th Street and Colorado Avenue -- across the street from the proposed site of the Expo light rail terminus station -- will be considered Tuesday by the City Council, sitting as the City’s Redevelopment Agency.
The proposed design fulfills the council’s wish to “create a gateway to the City enhancing the downtown experience,” staff wrote in its report.
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| Old Macy's Store |
Proposed Bloomingdale's |
The proposed makeover is part of an ambitious remodel of Santa Monica Place that will literally turn the struggling mall designed by Frank Gehry in the 1980s inside out by tearing off the roof and connecting it directly to the thriving Third Street Promenade.
Built in the 1980s as one of the mall’s two anchor department stores, the old Macy’s building had the main entrance “from the mall rather than the street, with minimal integration into the surrounding context,” staff wrote.
“In contrast, the remodeled Santa Monica Place Mall, currently under construction, will integrate into the downtown by extending towards Third Street Promenade and providing pedestrian oriented entrances on all four sides.”
In addition to providing “a significant gateway corner,” the proposed remodel creates an external pedestrian entrance and provides transparency on the ground level, which is currently faced by a blank concrete wall.
The design will grab the attention of pedestrians strolling down a wider sidewalk along Colorado that will face a row of “vitrines” that will serve as display windows or portals into the store, staff said. The design also will reduce the “massive appearance” of the building.
“The project creates a right angle corner entrance with a significantly different silhouette from the current diagonal configuration,” staff said. The design also features a small step back between the second and third floors.
The council must find that the design is consistent with the Downtown Redevelopment Plan and creates “an attractive and pleasant environment” through “consideration to good design, open space, and other amenities to enhance the aesthetic quality of the Project area.”
