> ## 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. # Moving closer to City Hall - URL: https://www.smdp.com/moving-closer-to-city-hall/ - Published: 2008-02-20T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T18:37:36.000Z - Author: Melody Hanatani - Tags: Government & Politics, Main St, #archive-import *City Hall explores moving agencies* CITY HALL The Santa Monica municipal family is about to become a tighter-knit unit. As the Housing and Economic Development Department prepares for a move this summer from its offices in east Santa Monica to the new digs on the corner of Main Street and Pico Boulevard, the City Manager’s Office is strategizing ways in which to bring the various municipal departments scattered throughout the city closer to City Hall. The point in pulling some of these departments closer is to improve operational efficiencies and customer service, according to Don Patterson, the assistant to the city manager for management services. “Right now, staff is spread out everywhere from the (Santa Monica) Airport to the (Santa Monica) Pier,” Patterson said on Tuesday. “It limits staff interactions... somebody has to drive across town and that basically does impact efficiency and operation.” Aside from City Hall, the various departments are housed in the pier carousel building, Clover Park, the Airport Administration building on Donald Douglas Loop, as well as eight leased-spaces throughout the city, most of which are concentrated in Downtown Santa Monica. These departments include the Water Resources Division, which is located on Fifth Street, and the Cultural Affairs Division, which calls Fourth Street home. Approximately $211,000 a month is being spent on rent for the departments housed in the eight privately-owned spaces. City Hall is currently in the process of finding a consultant to draft a master plan that would outline a long-term strategy in consolidating the various off-site departmental locations, a report that would update a 2002 study by the Sares Regis Group, which developed the City Hall Feasibility and Concept Designs. The difference from the 2002 study would be the inclusion of the Civic Center Specific Plan, which was adopted in 2005, Patterson said. The original Sares Regis study estimated that it would cost roughly $69 million if City Hall underwent a seismic upgrade and if an 111,000 square foot city services building, which would house some of the off-site departments, was constructed just to the northwest of City Hall. While the building of new city structures around City Hall is years away, city staff has identified several short-term measures that could help fix the operational inefficiency problem that goes along with having departments spread throughout the city. These measures also aim to alleviate the chronic problems of crowdedness in many of the offices, some built for one person but accommodating several. The strategies include negotiating new leases on the shortest term possible to allow flexibility when portions of the master plan are put into place, exploring spaces adjacent to the Civic Center whenever current leases expire, possibly using the former jail in City Hall as a computer room and exploring vacant office space on the ground floor of the new Civic Center parking garage. The old jail has been vacant since the Public Safety Facility opened a few years ago, Patterson said. Jeri Wingo, the president of the Santa Monica Municipal Employees Association, called City Hall “extremely overcrowded,” noting that many employees’ desks have piles of paper underneath. “There’s no personal space,” Wingo said on Tuesday. Wingo added that she would like to see the departments come closer together in a centralized location. Working behind the Transportation Management Counter in City Hall, she often overhears customers coming in asking about parking information, only to be referred to the Parking Office in the downtown area. “It’s so hard to get a place to park (near City Hall), when they’re here and sent somewhere else, it’s horrifying,” Wingo said. One of the major department moves anticipated in the next few months is the relocation of the Housing and Economic Development Department to a building at 1901 Main St. The two divisions in the department — Housing and Redevelopment, and Economic Development — are currently located in two separate sites, the former off the intersection of Cloverfield and Pico boulevards and the latter on Donald Douglas Loop. Bob Moncrief, the manager of the Housing Division, said he believes that bringing the two divisions into one building will enhance teamwork and communication. Moncrief added that attending meetings in City Hall often requires a bus or car trip, whereas staff will in the new location, be able to take the short walk over. “It’s an inefficient use of time,”Moncrief said. Another department head moving in the next few weeks is Elaine Polacheck, the head of the Community Maintenance Department, who will relocate from her office at Clover Park to the city yards on Michigan Avenue, where the department operations are headquartered. Polacheck said that though she has to drive to City Hall a few times a week for meetings, she thinks it would make more sense for her to be closer to the staff. “It depends on the operation,” Polacheck said. “For me, it’s easier to be where most of my staff is. I can always make it back and forth for meetings at City Hall, I just try to schedule it so... I don’t have to go back and forth as often.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 20, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022008.pdf?ref=smdp.com)