City Hall’s bond sales expected to finance new parking garage
DOWNTOWN — The drive to add 900 parking spaces to downtown Santa Monica kicked into high gear Tuesday as officials broke ground on a $33 million garage to be located at Fourth Street just south of Interstate 10.
Scheduled to open in the fall of 2006, the new structure marks the second major development in an ambitious plan to transform the area surrounding City Hall into a cultural hub for Santa Monica, with more than a dozen acres of new park space and up to 325 new apartments.
The $66 million police and fire building, which opened behind City Hall in August of 2003, was the first step towards realizing what city officials call the “Civic Center Specific Plan.” Next on the docket are three new housing projects along Ocean Avenue and a childcare facility off of Fourth Street.
Further plans include closing off a portion of Main Street to cars, building a broad roundabout in front of the courthouse and extending Second Street south over Interstate 10. New bike and pedestrian paths will tie the area to its residential and commercial neighbors, and to a light rail station planned for Fourth Street and Colorado Avenue. City Hall and the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium will remain and be refurbished.
All told, the Civic Center project will cover 62 acres of land and is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to complete. Officials hope to finish the makeover in as little as 10 years.
Dozens of city officials gathered for Tuesday’s ground-breaking ceremony, crediting the architecture firm Moore Ruble Yudell with designing an ecologically minded building that will serve as the first point of contact for many future visitors to the Santa Monica Civic Center.
“This is going to be the center of life in downtown Santa Monica,” said City Councilman Richard Bloom, referring to the comprehensive Civic Center development project. “All of downtown Santa Monica will work together as a whole... This is an extremely important step.”
“All of downtown Santa Monica will work together as a whole... This is an extremely important step.” — RICHARD BLOOM City Councilman
James O’Connor, principal of Moore Ruble Yudell, said the new parking structure will stand five-stories tall, with an additional level of parking on the roof, and another one-and-a-half levels of underground parking reserved for police and fire personnel, who will be able to access their offices through a private, underground passageway. The parking structure will have 10,000 square feet of ground-floor space for retail or office use, including a large cafe space with an outdoor patio facing north, toward the police and fire building.
In an effort to save energy, the garage was designed with a canopy of glass, photovoltaic solar panels which will generate much of the building’s electricity. The structure will be wrapped in a veil of blue, green and amber panels, a theme borrowed from the “tumbled” look of sea glass. The idea is to make the building stand out, even in coastal fog.
“The colors belong to Santa Monica,” said O’Connor, whose firm also designed the new Main Library. “It echoes the place.”
One thing that won’t be part of the new structure is a community meeting room. Officials in May of 2003 had a long discussion over where in the garage a public room should be situated. Some council members pushed for a top-floor room with ocean views. Others argued a ground-floor room would be more accessible. Ultimately, the concept was scrapped altogether.
In order to fund the $32.5 million structure, which will be built by Lake Forest, Calif.-based general contractor ARB Inc., City Hall sold $39 million in lease-revenue bonds with a 19-year pay-back schedule, according to Steve Stark, City Hall’s finance director. Part of the extra money will be held for unforeseen expenses and the rest will be used to pay interest on the bonds, at a rate ranging from 3.35 percent to 5 percent, Stark said.
Other expenses already put forward on the Civic Center plan include the $66 million spent to build the police and fire building, along with $53 million City Hall paid to buy the old RAND Corp. property in 1999. Another $250,000 has been budgeted for Civic Center designs. The remaining costs of the project, certain to reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars, have yet to be financed.
“It could physically be completed in 10 years,” said Andy Agle, City Hall’s assistant planning director. “The other piece that needs to be there is the funding.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 9, 2005. Read the original PDF.