> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Here’s looking at hue: Garages getting fancy - URL: https://www.smdp.com/heres-looking-at-hue-garages-getting-fancy/ - Published: 2007-02-14T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T00:03:38.000Z - Author: Kevin Herrera - Tags: Government & Politics, Downtown, #archive-import DOWNTOWN Coming soon to a parking structure near you — citrus leaf, cornflower and violet gems. Those are some of the colors city staff is considering using when it comes time to paint the roofs and stairwells of the six parking structures downtown to give each one an identity so that visitors don’t forget where they park and have a better sense of their surroundings. When shoppers and diners park and walk about downtown, they need only remember they parked in Tuscan sun. Or was it armour? In addition to the new shades, each structure will have additional lighting and signage developed by City Hall’s cultural affairs manager, artist Cliff Garten and architects at Santa Monica-based Hugh + Scarpa, which was hired by City Hall in 2006 for $107,000 and counting to give the structures a much-needed makeover. “The structures are horrible and need to have been painted yesterday,” said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District Corp., a public-private management company that works with City Hall in promoting and managing downtown. “Let’s move forward and see what we get.” If only it was that easy. With improvements come added maintenance costs. The parking structures are no different. There is some concern about how much City Hall will have to spend each year keeping the paint clean and looking fresh, especially since the design calls for a gradient effect that includes multiple shades of each color. At a meeting of Bayside board members and city staff, issues were raised regarding graffiti removal and normal wear and tear. Staffers are flirting with the idea of painting just one portion of a structure to see how the paint will hold up after six months. That would give them a better idea as to what the challenges are with maintaining the color schemes. “The proof really is in the pudding,” said Elaine Polachek, director of community maintenance. “We need to put it on the wall to see how it looks... The idea of a pilot program is to see what the impacts are. We need to determine what resources will be needed to keep it going.” Polachek said there are only four painters on staff to handle the entire city. Members of the Bayside board said they were pleased with the design and color scheme, but were not in favor of a pilot program, which would delay painting the structures for almost a year. The land and asset committee for Bayside voted against the pilot project and will make a recommendation to the City Council to move forward with the painting. The Architecture Review Board has already signed off on the design and color scheme. “We are talking about a parking structure here, not the interior of a multi-million dollar home,” said John Warfel, a member of Bayside and chair of the committee. “My concern is that the paint we do use come from a brand name company so we’re not sitting here three years from now unable to order the colors to match what we currently have. “We’re talking about 48 different colors... we have a hard enough time now keeping the same color white.” Gwynne Pugh, a co-founder of Pugh + Scarpa and chair of the Planning Commission, said he understands the maintenance concerns, but said the cultural affairs division in City Hall has agreed to make sure the right paint is used during any repairs. “With any project, you just got to deal with the realities that you will struggle getting a wide variety of people to agree on one thing,” Pugh said. “Disagreement is par for the course.” Rob York, a consultant for Bayside, said no harm can come from moving forward with the project considering the current state of the structures. “In the worse-case scenario, it will take years before it’s worse than it is today,” York said of the proposed color scheme. “And we have to remember that it’s just paint. If there’s a problem (with the color scheme), we can paint over it.” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/021407-14_01.jpg) *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 14, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021407.pdf?ref=smdp.com)