A Good Idea Up and Down

By Teresa Rochester

Jean Gebman has an idea.

Which isn't a bad thing for a RAND Corp. aeronautical engineer who studies aircraft.

But Gebman's idea doesn't involve anything airborne. In fact it is quite firmly rooted in the terra firma - literally.

Gebman envisions a large subterranean garage with a football field on top -- preferably in the large parking lot behind the City-owned Civic Center Auditorium -- to help ease the City's and Santa Monica High School's terminal parking crunch and dearth of playing fields.

"We did look at putting it on the high school, tearing up the football field, but that would destroy the athletic program at the school for at least a year," said Gebman, whose son, Michael, helped craft the proposal. "Across the street there is this big piece of asphalt that looks ugly."

For a year the father of three quietly discussed his plan before going public last month, handing out thick detailed packets of information to the City Council and the Board of Education. The timing, Gebman told them, couldn't be better as a task force begins work crafting a new plan for the Civic Center area.

While the council did not publicly comment on the idea, Board of Education members were intrigued and cautiously enthused. "This is definitely out of the box but exciting," said board member Pam Brady. "In a constricted area this is where we need to look."

Brady suggested taking the idea to the Liaison Committee, which is made up of representatives from the council, board, the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees and employees of the three agencies.

"For you and your son to come up with these creative ideas I appreciate it," board member Julia Brownely said. "I'm a little worried about debating the proposal with the City."

Gebman's idea came to him while he was visiting Michael, a graduate student studying civil engineering at San Diego State University. When Gebman arrived on campus he noticed work crews digging a large hole in the ground. Less than a year later the hole had become an underground garage with a large field on top, complete with a track and bleachers.

"I thought, 'Damn that's what we need,'" he said.

So Gebman and Michael went to work. They measured the Civic Auditorium parking lot and alternate locations and wrote an argument for the idea. Michael, a SAMOHI graduate, created computer-generated renderings of the proposed football field. Father and son discovered that "it fits, at least in theory it fits," Gebman said.

The need for the field and garage is more than evident, said Gebman, who serves as the chair of the school district's Prop. X facility modernization committee and the Airport Commission.

At the high school, surface parking is limited and uses up the space the school needs to expand its buildings to alleviate its overcrowded classrooms. Gebman's proposal also addresses the issues of pedestrian safety and parking in neighborhoods, as well as a lack of parking that discourages parents and volunteers from participating.

In addition, Gebman argues that there simply isn't enough field space on the campus to accommodate all the sports the school offers -- from football and softball to soccer. Because there are only three fields and they are always in use, grass never has a chance to fully grow, leaving the surface packed hard with dirt that leads to injuries

As a result, the groups who use the fields must often engage in creative schedule juggling, said marching band director Terry Sakow.

"There's definitely a need at the high school campus for parking," Sakow said. "There's not a lot of field space. We used to have three football fields… We do a lot of creative juggling, staying here late at night, which isn't good for the kids."

Sakow points out that Gebman's field could become the home field for SAMOHI, which currently uses SMC's Corsair Field, requiring the football team and the marching band to haul all of their equipment across town. The college recently removed bleachers reserved for visiting spectators, forcing rival fans to sit together.

Gebman sees the garage below the field -- which should accommodate 2,500 vehicles -- serving a number of needs. It would be used not only by students, faculty and visitors during the day but by adult night school participants and people attending performances at Barnum Hall and the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium at night.

Although seemingly unusual, the idea of a subterranean lot with a field on top is hardly new. Through his conversations, Gebman discovered that such lots are used at the University of California at Los Angeles, and its northern sibling UC Berkley, which built theirs in the 1960s. Down the road from Santa Monica, Loyola Marymount University also has a lot under athletic fields.

As he shopped his proposal around town Gebman found a willingness to explore the option. He also encountered a frequent question: How do you keep it from leaking?

"If you can put a man on the moon we ought to be able to figure out how to put a field on top of a parking garage," Gebman said. "Nobody's objected to using a field on top of a garage."

As part of his proposal, Gebman put together a financial forecast for the lot. He acknowledges that the cost of subterranean lots is generally double that of surface lots. He said that part of the cost could be recouped through parking lot fees.

"When you go subterranean it doubles the cost, but then on the other hand, the Lord is not making anymore land for Santa Monica," he said.

So Gebman -- who is often a fixture at public meetings with his Apple Powerbook laptop -- will continue to shop around his idea, presenting his case during the Civic Center redesign public process.

"The reason for talking to folks is two part," he said. "First is to hear what other issues and questions there may be. Second to generate interest. So now it's up to the community to talk about it as part of the community need, so they can make an informed choice about the best use of this resource [Civic Center].

"That's one thing about Santa Monica," Gebman said, "it really does have an open process."