> ## 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. # City Hall shifts away from restaurant proposal - URL: https://www.smdp.com/see-bank-page-9-city-hall-shifts-away-from-restaurant-proposal/ - Published: 2008-07-15T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-25T00:22:00.000Z - Author: Melody Hanatani - Tags: Government & Politics, Santa Monica, #archive-import *City departments look to move into Civic Center garage DITCHING DREAMS OF A RESTAURANT* City officials are giving up on their search for a sit-down fine-dining experience in the neighborhood’s newest parking garage, abandoning plans to land a restaurant after a more than year-long search. The 3,500 square-feet indoor and outdoor space once marketed for a restaurant in the Civic Center Garage will instead be sliced into two, one portion to be occupied by a small lunch-time cafe, the remainder by City Hall departments. The shift toward a smaller-scale eatery came after numerous restaurateurs reportedly interested in the location informed City Hall they felt the space was too big and would require too many dollars to retrofit into a desirable culinary spot. The City Manager’s Office last week instead presented an option to the City Council that would alleviate the space crunch in City Hall and satisfy the lunch-time need of area employees at the same time, proposing to move various departments into the vacant ground-floor office and retail spots in the parking garage while leaving some room for a cafe. While the council endorsed the idea, Mayor Pro Tem Richard Bloom asked city staff to be mindful that the Fourth Street frontage of the garage, which is where the offices are located, should be lively, generating activity instead of repelling it. “I was simply asking that the city try to focus on moving people over there for uses that would generate activity on that street,” Bloom said. He recalled the impact of when a city department took over a ground floor space in another Downtown Santa Monica garage, one that was previously leased by Santa Monica College. The space went from being visible, its activities interacting with the street, to a dead space with its blinds drawn, Bloom said. The move into the Civic Center garage is expected to make things roomier in City Hall, as well as saving taxpayers quite a sum of money. City Hall currently leases more than 51,000 square feet of office space throughout Santa Monica at an annual cost of approximately $2.2 million, the annexes including a complex at 525 Broadway which houses CityTV and code compliance. Among the City Hall functions that will move to the Civic Center garage will be code compliance and the parking permit arm of Planning and Community Development. The move is expected to save taxpayers several thousand dollars over the long term from the loss of the leases. That doesn’t include the cost savings from improved efficiencies in City Hall. “This brings all of Planning and Community Development into a more defined area,” Don Patterson, an assistant to the City Manager, said. “This will help the department have more interaction and better customer service. “We don’t need to send people from City Hall to Santa Monica Boulevard or Broadway to complete services,” he added. Ditching dreams of a restaurant When the Civic Center garage opened in spring of 2007, the indoor and outdoor dining space along Olympic Drive was originally marketed as a prime spot for a restaurant. About four restaurant owners took a tour of the space, some concluding that it was much too big, others feeling it would require a larger investment than they were willing to make. “With the revised plan, some of the tenant improvements will be taken care of by the city since they will share the restroom and the space will be smaller,” Miriam Mack, the economic development manager, said. “Restaurants operate on a thin margin and it’s easier to go to a space that was previously a restaurant … and there’s more capital investment to go into a brand new space that has not been tended.” City Hall has had an equally difficult time marketing the retail spots along Fourth Street, which has remained vacant since the garage’s opening. “The space is challenging because they have low ceilings and slightly sloped floor,” Patterson said. “It’s going to be challenging to work with low ceilings and a lot of retail prefer higher ceilings.” The council in the next few weeks could be asked to grant a roughly $270,000 contract to TLD Construction to perform tenant improvement at the parking structure. Staff is currently in negotiations with several restaurant owners to operate a smaller 750 square feet cafe, still meeting the needs of the daytime population at the Santa Monica Courthouse and City Hall. The rent is up for negotiations, but a previous market appraisal indicated the space could command approximately $3 a square foot. “It’s probably primarily going to be a sandwich-salad lunch place,” Patterson said. “The type of restaurants we’re talking will specialize in the \[office population\].” Jump hedline: City departments look to move into civic center garage Suggested pullquote: “Restaurants operate on a thin margin and it’s easier to go to a space that was previously a restaurant … and there’s more capital investment to go into a brand new space that has not been tended.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 15, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/071508.pdf?ref=smdp.com)