The parking structure was designed with the idea it would serve as the gateway to the Civic Center area and be more than a storage for cars. The new garage also includes the restaurant space on the second floor and several office/retail spaces along the ground level.
The city has not began recruiting applications for tenants to fill the office spaces.
Project architects from the firm of Moore Ruble Yudell Architects in Santa Monica designed the terrace with the idea that a restaurant would utilize it for outdoor dining.
“We love the idea of taking something that was ordinary and mundane in some way, like a parking structure, and changing it,” said James Mary O’Connor, principal of Moore Ruble Yudell Architects.
The Civic Center parking structure is expected to achieve certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design by the United States Green Building Council, a national recognition for environmental friendly design. If it is able to do so, the Civic Center structure might have the distinction of being the first and only LEED-certified city parking structure in the country.
It would also be one of the few structures with its own restaurant.
“One of the important things of architects’ work today is to make cities more livable,” O’Connor said. “For architects today, to make places more livable means incorporating places for people to gather.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 18, 2007. Read the original PDF.