Neighbors worry about facility’s traffic, noise
Community debate is surfacing about whether a new 500-seat theater should be built in the middle of one of Santa Monica’s oldest neighborhoods or if it should go in a more public place like the civic center.
If you ask anyone at Santa Monica College where it should go, the answer is easy — the complex should be at its Madison Campus on 11th Street and Santa Monica Boulevard, where it’s being proposed. But there has been some discussion, prompted by a few city officials, that perhaps a theater of that size would be better suited at the mammoth civic center redevelopment proposed near City Hall.
It would certainly make neighbors near the Madison campus happy.
One of those neighbors is Susan Suntree, who lacks no qualms about the thought of having a performing arts center in her “backyard.” Suntree is on the advisory committee that monitors the project’s plans and was one of dozens of neighbors who spoke out at the college’s first meeting in August, when the project was unveiled. The room was packed with concerned and curious neighbors, who drilled college officials with questions about how a new performing arts center would affect them. Many walked away disappointed after they felt officials dodged their questions by answering with generic statements about how the theater will improve the cultural landscape in Santa Monica.
Perhaps that’s why not even a handful of people showed up at the advisory committee’s meeting in October. David Stover, who lives directly across from the Madison Campus on 11th Street, felt that way even though he would rather see the theater in the civic center area.
“Isn’t that the civic, central spot for it?” he asked.
Stover’s also concerned that the facility will generate more traffic, noise and parking problems in his neighborhood. What’s more, he’s scared that the proposed theater is the first step in a larger plan to grow the campus into the size of the Pico Boulevard campus.
“The side that I am on is the people who own property there,” he said. “There is a side of an administration to bolster its reputation and career... it could be a whole adjunct branch like what’s on Pico and who wants something like that?”
“The side that I am on is the people who own property there.” — — DAVID STOVER Santa Monica resident
SMC President Piedad Robertson has said that neighbors will not be left out of the planning process, in fact they are part of it. There are five people that live within a quarter mile of the proposed theater that were selected to be on the advisory committee.
The idea of moving the proposed theater off campus was first publicly talked about last spring at one of the Civic Center Working Group meetings. The working group is overseeing the design of the $120 million redevelopment plan. The city purchased 11 acres from the RAND Corporation last year for $53 million. A new development plan is being reviewed that would change the entire face of the civic center area. It could include hundreds of housing units, open space and new public buildings such as City Hall.
Last spring, Santa Monica City Councilman Richard Bloom, who is on the working group, suggested the SMC facility should be at the Civic Center. He is backed by councilmen Kevin McKeown and Ken Genser, who also serve on the committee.
The idea was brought up again last month when Borris Dramov, the architect designing the new civic area, presented a scenario with the SMC theater in the parking lot east of the current civic center auditorium.
Because of neighbors’ concerns about increased traffic and already overcrowded schools which may force the Madison Campus to be reverted back to a middle school, some city officials think a new campus facility isn’t the best idea.
McKeown said it is up to SMC officials to decide whether they would want a new performing arts center off campus.
“The college has to accept the invitation first,” adding a formal invitation regarding the offer was made in early November.
But college officials already have said they aren’t interested in taking the facility off site. “We cannot support a stand-alone theater,” reads a statement in the college’s information packet about the project. “We must integrate a theater into a whole campus setting. The college does not have the economic resources to create an entirely new campus at the civic center and the Madison site already provides the campus setting we need.”
The Madison Campus theater is being proposed in the same location as the existing auditorium. The main level, expanded balcony and new lobby will add about 15,000 square feet, which would make the entire facility 56,000 square feet. The height of the building has not been determined yet, and neighbors are anxiously awaiting the dimensions from the project’s architect, Renzo Zecchetto.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 24, 2001. Read the original PDF.