Hold that thought: Officials eye restrooms for Third St.
THIRD STREET PROMENADE — When you gotta go, you gotta go.
But finding a clean, public rest-room here can be difficult — some say impossible — which is why business owners and city officials are once again looking to provide some relief.
This time around, that relief may come in the form of a new, centrally-located restroom facility, complete with ample bathroom stalls, baby-changing tables and an attendant to make sure urinals are pristine and soap dispensers full.
The idea was flushed out earlier this week during a meeting between city officials and members of Bayside District Corp., a public-private management company that works in partnership with City Hall on issues impacting downtown.
Bayside members pushed for City Hall to consider creating the new bathroom facility in downtown parking structure No. 4, which will undergo a seismic retrofitting and slight remodel in January that will include the creation of a trash bin room, equipped with a “mister” and grease trap to keep offensive odors from wafting into the adjacent alley, city officials said.
The remodel will allow for a new bathroom of roughly 20 square feet, according to preliminary drawings by City Hall’s design team, but members of Bayside are hoping some handicapped parking spaces can be relocated to make room for a larg-er restroom for both men and women.
“Unsupervised restrooms have caused problems for years, and on top of that they’re hard to locate,” Bayside board member Barbara Bryan said during a meeting of the organization’s land and asset committee, which supports a new restroom facility in the parking structure. The structure is located behind the Promenade on Second Street, just south of Arizona Avenue.
“By having one large, centrally located restroom with an attendant, we can make it easier for folks to find it, and easier to monitor and keep clean,” Bryan added. “I see (the retrofitting of structure four) as a golden opportunity that should not be wasted.”
The debate about the lack of bathrooms downtown has dragged on for several years as city officials grapple with where to put them and the costs associated with purchasing or leasing property to build them.
“The current layout of restrooms in the old parking structures is not ideal and I think they are frequently not kept up as well as we would like them to be because so many people use them and some don’t treat them so nicely,” said Councilman Richard Bloom. “This has been something we have discussed a number of times over the years, and hopefully, we will be addressing it soon in a very meaningful way.”
Meanwhile, tourists and other visitors to the Promenade have often found themselves “holding it” while in search of a bathroom.
Currently, there are six public rest-rooms located around the Promenade, one in each of the parking structures. Five are open, said Kathleen Rawson, the executive director of Bayside.
The restroom in parking structure No. 5 was damaged in a fire more than a year ago and has since been closed.
There also are restrooms in Santa Monica Place which are heavily used, along with bathrooms in restaurants or private businesses, and retail stores. But many have found that some stores do not have bathrooms for customers, leaving some to wander, frantically looking for a place to answer nature’s call.
“Restrooms are a serious concern because if Santa Monica Place closes its doors, we could lose access to those rest-rooms and that would put us in a terrible situation,” Rawson said of the imminent redevelopment of the mall.
It is too early in the process to determine what the desired restroom facility would cost or how it would be paid for.
“It’s really all speculation at this point,” Rawson said.
City Hall could pick up the tab, or businesses in the Bayside District could pay for it out of assessments collected annually by the organization.
Don’t expect the bathroom to rival New York City’s Bryant Park restroom facility, which underwent a $200,000 renovation that helped it earn an award for America’s best bathroom in 2002. The bathroom caught the fancy of many downtown property and business owners at a recent meeting when the amenity was presented as an example in the discussion of what new assessments could buy.
“We’re not talking about gold-plated fixtures or an attendant to hand out mints,” Rawson said. “We are just looking for a bathroom that meets the needs of visitors that is clean and easy to locate. I think that’s all people are looking for.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 20, 2006. Read the original PDF.