New mall plans on the table in three months
DOWNTOWN — A group of residents is suing City Hall in the hopes of shedding light on what will become the new Santa Monica Place, but city leaders said their efforts may prove unnecessary.
The Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City (SMCLC), the group suing City Hall, last week submitted a petition to the Los Angeles Superior Court for a “writ of mandate,” asking the city of Santa Monica to produce records related to the re-development of Santa Monica Place. The group, comprised of 100 residents, requested the information two months ago, but has yet to receive an adequate response from City Hall. A hearing regarding the case is expected within the next two months.
The SMCLC filed a request for public records with the city of Santa Monica for documents, including all written communications between City Hall and the mall’s owner, the Macerich Co., that relate to the proposed redevelopment of Santa Monica Place.
SMCLC sought public documents from January 2000 to the present because its membership believed — through discussions with officials and residents, and by re-reading news articles and City Council agendas — that Macerich officials had “floated” to City Hall at least one prior proposal to redevelop Santa Monica Place that wouldn’t have dramatically increased building density on the site.
Plans to build skyscraper luxury apartments, with commercial and retail buildings below, were scrapped earlier this year after being presented to the public and met with stiff resistance. A new proposal is expected this fall.
SMCLC also sought documents that would show the value of the land and the parking structures on the site — which are owned by City Hall’s redevelopment agency — and those related to recent city-facilitated telephone surveys asking residents their opinions about the future of Santa Monica Place.
The SMCLC said City Hall “produced very few documents and virtually none in these categories.”
City attorney representatives were unavailable for comment.
Judy Rambeau, a city spokeswoman, said the phone survey has been part of the public input process promised by the City Council since the last proposal was disregarded. She said the survey will be paid for by Macerich.
Diana Gordon, a spokeswoman for SMCLC, said what has prompted the group’s action is fear that traffic impacts and the project’s scale were not being seriously factored into the public input process.
“What we want to know is, is the city considering the effect of traffic and the environment on the project?” Gordon asked. “A few years of construction for re-development could cause serious traffic and environmental problems.”
The SMCLC was formed in January as an action group intended to keep plans for Santa Monica Place in check.
Gordon said part of the reason SMCLC members feel there may have been other proposals floating in front of city officials stemmed from news articles the group has collected.
The SMCLC claims it has exhausted its attempts to negotiate with City Hall to obtain the public documents, so it has pursued litigation.
Randy Brant, senior vice president of leasing and development for Macerich, said he was surprised to hear of the SMCLC’s lawsuit.
“I’m mystified there are some who feel there is an agreement with the city on any plan for Santa Monica Place,” Brant said. “It’s simply not true.”
“I’m mystified there are some who feel there is an agreement with the city on any plan for Santa Monica Place. It’s simply not true.” — RANDY BRANT Senior V.P., The Macerich Co
Meanwhile, elected officials, who will review and approve the final proposal for the new Santa Monica Place, said there have been no secret deals with Macerich.
“As far as I know, there are no secret deals of any kind,” said City Councilman Herb Katz. “I think some people feel we live in back rooms, but the fact is we told Macerich to get out in the community and find out what people will live with.”
Macerich representatives did, however, meet individually with City Councilmembers and City Council candidates before the election last November to gauge their response to their proposal to build 21-story towers in downtown Santa Monica.
The question of how Santa Monica Place should be redeveloped is something that city officials have been trying to answer recently. “Re-Imagine Santa Monica Place,” a series of public workshops sponsored by City Hall, were held in March to determine how to redevelop the downtown indoor shopping mall between Broadway and Colorado Avenue, and Second and Fourth streets.
Brant said the current site needs to be redeveloped because it was built in the 1980s on an outdated suburban shopping mall model that doesn’t compete well with the Third Street Promenade in today’s market.
Macerich scrapped a proposed development last year due to controversy about the height of high-rise buildings that were slated for the site. If created, the project would have involved demolishing the existing mall and erecting three 21-story residential towers, an eight-story office building and an eight-story apartment building. Those buildings were to be built on top of a new outdoor mall, which developers described as a natural extension of the Third Street Promenade.
Assistant City Manager Gordon Anderson said City Hall has been authorized by the City Council to spend between $150,00 to $250,000 to hire Moore Iacofano, and another consulting firm, Keyser Marston Associates, to facilitate a proposal that falls within nine council-directed guidelines intended to better satisfy the public’s vision for Santa Monica Place redevelopment.
Moore Iacofano representatives hosted the workshops, with city staff and Macerich representatives on hand to observe and answer questions.
Keyser Marston Associates will do an economic feasibility study in tandem with city planners to determine the pros and cons of concepts for the Santa Monica Place site that originated from the public discussion.
Those concepts will then be presented to the City Council and the public for final approval, which will likely be in September or October, Anderson said. Macerich will then reimburse City Hall for the costs of the consulting services.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 1, 2005. Read the original PDF.