City Eyes Downtown Properties for Parking

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

May 13 – The City Council Tuesday night took another step to tackle the Downtown parking crunch by authorizing negotiations to purchase two sites for possible parking structures.

The surface lots at 101 and 129 Santa Monica Boulevard could be part of an ambitious $92.5 million to keep the Bayside’s economic engine humming by upgrading Downtown’s public parking structures and building new ones.

Slated to be completed in 2010, the plan will upgrade and retrofit older garages to help withstand future tremblers and add more than 1,700 spaces in new structures.

Calling it a “vision of the future,” Resource Management Director Jeff Mathieu said the City plans to take the whole project – which is ahead of schedule and running smoothly -- to another level in the next couple years.

“We had a very good dialogue in the beginning of this whole process which enabled us to bring the project to where it is today,” Mathieu said.

Under the plan, the City will retrofit and redevelop parking structures 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 and demolish structures 1, 3 and 6. City officials are securing 1,100 interim parking spaces at the new library and the new Civic Center parking structure, which are now under construction, while they work to cement deals to purchase land for new structures.

Over the past six months, City officials have been negotiating a deal to buy property along Colorado Avenue, between 4th and 5th streets. Although the agreement is yet to be inked, Mathieu indicated the site would become not only a parking garage, but the future hub of a proposed light rail system.

While the final decision rests with the Los Angeles Mass Transit Authority, Mathieu said he was optimistic about the deal to connect Santa Monica with the greater Los Angeles area. “We are anticipating this could be a strong reality,” Mathieu said.

Like the parking plan, the mass transit project would encourage a “one stop” philosophy to get people out of their cars once they enter the downtown area, instead of driving from spot to spot, Mathieu said.

If approved, construction of the transit project could begin as early as 2008 and be completed between 2015 and 2018. Big Blue Bus revenues are expected to fund the system.

For now, the City could be close to deciding on the layout of the newly built parking structures, with officials leaning towards subterranean parking topped with mixed-use development that includes retail stores and restaurants, Mathieu said.

With each parking space averaging anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000, Mathieu said it is not only important to get planning right at these early stages, but to establish a system that allows for the future repair and maintenance of the structures.

“When our predecessors built the parking structures, which were considered state of the art for their times, they simply built them and left them there, with no extra money for upkeep,” Mathieu said. “We are trying to avoid that same problem.”

The Environmental Impact Report for razing the existing structures and building new ones should be completed by late 2004 or early 2005, Mathieu said. The demolition and construction will likely take place in phases to retain as many spaces as possible at any given time.