City to build new urban runoff facility in Mar Vista
(Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures which appear on the upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agenda. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past).
By Carolyn Sackariason
Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL — Officials here are expected tonight to spend nearly three-quarters of a million dollars on pre-construction work for a new bus facility and a new park.
The big ticket item — $650,000 — will be spent on pre-construction services to expand the Big Blue Bus campus between Sixth and Seventh streets, and Colorado Avenue and Olympic Boulevard. The expansion plan calls for an administration building with underground employee and visitor parking, which will be linked to a new maintenance facility. There also will be on-site parking to accommodate 235 buses.
The City Council in April approved the project in concept, which include a natural gas fueling and bus wash facility; demolition of a building that offers free showers and lockers to homeless people; demolition of the old administration building at 612 Colorado Ave. and the construction of a new one; a new underground parking structure, a new bus maintenance facility and the demolition of the old maintenance building. A new homeless shower and locker facility will be built at the OPCC Access Center next door to the bus yard.
The entire project — which is expected to cost $152 million paid for in transportation funds — will be done in phases in the next few years.
Another $102,300 is expected to be spent to design Euclid Park, which will be between Colorado Avenue and Broadway. City Hall purchased the site on Euclid Street in 1999, which was previously known as the Los Angeles County Mental Health Center.
The existing Spanish-Colonial-Revival style building was renovated late last year as a combined housing and community meeting space project. The project includes 13 housing units for people with disabilities operated by United Cerebral Palsy and about 1,000 square feet of community rooms operated by the city. The adjacent 15,000-square-foot parking lot will be turned into the park.
In other consent agenda action:
• The City Council is expected to build a new urban runoff facility in Mar Vista to reduce pollution going into Santa Monica Bay. Called the Centinela Basin Urban Runoff Mitigation Project, it will be funded entirely through grants from the state — about $1.8 million. The facility will treat storm water runoff, including dry weather flows, entering nearby Ballona Creek, the receiving body of water for the city’s eastern border. The creek runs directly into the bay. Both areas have degraded water quality, which officials say reduces a variety of beneficial uses like swimming and fishing, and is why they are listed on a national list of impaired bodies of water.
The facility also will remove 80 percent of soluble pollutants, including oil and grease, and 100 percent of solid materials larger than 18 inches in diameter. The facility also is expected to treat up to three-quarters of an inch of storm water for the tributary area over 24 hours.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 11, 2004. Read the original PDF.