PRC switches its focus
Expect to see some changes on the Santa Monica Pier this year.
Not that there haven’t been some already. With different faces on the Pier Restoration Corp. board and a fresh executive director, an entire new outlook on how to run Santa Monica’s most popular tourist destination is in the works.
A new set of priorities has been set into motion that includes getting new restaurants onto the pier, building a new bridge ramp that leads to beach parking, rebuilding the breakwater to bring back the boat harbor and developing more local events instead of corporate sponsored ones.
The PRC board has experienced little change over the past decade, with some members staying on as long as 16 years. That may be partly the reason the public hasn’t seen much change happen on a pier that sees between 25,000 and 50,000 visitors on a summer day.
A couple of key restaurant locations have remained vacant for years and the attractions have remained stagnant, leaving few reasons to go to the pier, some observers say.
In the past seven months, six new people have been appointed to the 12-person PRC board. Two more are leaving at the end of the year.
Ben Franz-Knight was officially hired as the new PRC executive director earlier this spring. Franz-Knight, who had been serving as interim director for the past year, said he’s paid less than the previous director to do more.
And that’s just how he wants it. The PRC’s $560,000 budget, which is funded mostly by City Hall, has for years operated in the red. Next year, it will have an estimated $22,000 surplus, despite that the city will give $55,000 less.
“It’s a direct change in operational philosophy,” Franz-Knight said. “I want to be completely transparent about what we do down here.”
The savings mostly come from reducing administrative expenses, including Franz-Knight’s annual salary of $63,000 which pales in comparison to the former director’s salary of $111,000.
There have been other savings in salaries as well. The person in charge of corporate sponsorships, who was paid $60,000, has been replaced with a marketing director for $40,000. A public relations position that paid $34,000 also was eliminated.
“I took on the corporate sponsorship role and dispersed the other responsibilities onto the staff,” Franz-Knight Knight said. “Everybody took on additional responsibilities.
“We have to do more with less, that’s the order of the day.”
MORE TO COME — AND EAT The movie-themed chain restaurant Bubba Gump Shrimp is expected to open next year. The restaurant’s location has been vacant since April of 2002 when the city ended its month to month lease with the 50-year-old Boathouse.
Bubba Gump is expected to pay $10,417 in base rent a month, plus $1,889 annually for common maintenance and 2.5 percent of the restaurant’s food, beverage and retail gross sales.
The Boathouse paid $5,429 in monthly rent, $168 for annual promotional fees and 8 percent of its gross revenues in excess of $688,000 in annualized sales.
Bubba Gump plans to raze the old building and build a new one, which will be located just below the pier ramp. Restaurant representatives are scheduled to go before the city planning commission this month to lay out their plans.
Just down the way on the south side of the pier, officials hope to re-open a restaurant space that was once known as the Ashgrove and then Arcadia.
Both restaurants failed for various reasons, officials said. Arcadia, which opened in 1999, failed within six months of opening because it was under funded, officials said.
The spot has been vacant ever since. The city twice has tried to market the spot as a nightclub and restaurant, but what officials realized was it’s too small of a venue.
Some entrepreneurs fear the place is cursed and have shied away from opening a business there. But city officials think the location would be better served as a cafe or casual restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since they broadened their scope, city officials have had a few inquiries.
Mark Richter, economic development manager for the city, said it’s the PRC’s hope to have a lease signed by the fall with a new restaurant.
With Bubba Gump opening, officials believe the other restaurant will have more success.
“Part of the idea was to get Bubba in there so it could fuel the others,” said former PRC board chair Michael Klein.
If both locations are occupied, it’ll mean more than $250,000 a year in additional revenue for the city, which owns the pier, Richter said.
ON THE HORIZON Most PRC officials hope the breakwater project just north of the pier will be fully funded.
The City Council recently set aside $2 million as part of its contribution to the project. The Army Corps of Engineers has committed $4.5 million to the project, but the city has to find another $2 million to match the contribution.
Over the past few decades, the 2,000-foot-long sea wall has slowly deteriorated, now leaving only a glimpse of it at low tide.
Rebuilding the breakwater includes a harbor and dock for boats, which is required by the Army Corps as part of its funding.
Some say a boat harbor will reconnect the pier with the ocean through maritime activities. Others like the breakwater because it can save the pier’s pilings from eroding by constant waves crashing against them. The breakwater minimizes the wave energy before it comes to the shore.
But there could be significant environmental impacts, too. Studies have shown that bacteria levels are higher in areas with breakwaters because the man-made barriers prevent the ocean’s waves from washing unhealthy waste out to sea. Shoreline erosion and other environmental degradation also is possible.
PRC officials worry about how traffic would be handled on the pier if a boat harbor was built. Millions of additional visitors could be drawn to the pier with a harbor.
But by the end of next year, a new bridge and ramp designed to funnel traffic to the beach parking lot just north of the pier should be complete.
It will allow vehicles to travel down to the pier and park near the beach, instead of driving on Ocean Avenue to the Pacific Coast Highway.
“There is no release valve for traffic when it backs up,” Franz-Knight said. “And it’s time to widen the sidewalk... there will be a 16-foot-wide sidewalk on the south side of the bridge.”
New bathrooms also are planned to be built at the pier.
BACK TO BASICS After realizing minimal success in the past, the PRC and Franz-Knight switched the pier’s focus from corporate sponsored events to local ones that are community based.
Students from Los Angeles schools have been invited to play their music and perform plays on the west end of the pier as part of Franz-Knight’s “Pier Jam” events. He’s also planning a comprehensive curriculum for students in L.A. to tour the pier. The day tours will cover the gamut of educational disciplines — history, biology and ecology, physics and public service by teaching students about the Ocean Discovery Center, the Pacific Ocean, the solar powered Ferris Wheel and the police and harbor patrol offices.
A variety of community events also are held on the pier now, including a series of concerts by local bands during the winter, as well as an annual arts and crafts festival and a host of holiday-themed parties.
“I view the Santa Monica Pier as the heart and soul of Santa Monica,” Franz- Knight said. “We should extend that pride.”
A NEW VISION AND PLAN Franz-Knight said he feels comfortable with his new board, which represents a broad section of the community. Members have a variety of backgrounds that balance most interests, he added.
Linda Sullivan, chair of the PRC board, said the board plans to have a retreat this summer when a new business plan is expected to unfold.
“It’ll sum up what I believe the new vision of the board’s role is,” she said.
Richter, the city’s staff liaison to the board, said the change has been for the good thus far.
“Over the past two years, virtually the entire board has changed out,” he said. “A change in composition of a board guarantees infusion of new ideas... It’s good to periodically question what it is that they are doing, especially when dealing with public funds.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 11, 2003. Read the original PDF.