Days after releasing ambitious plans to redevelop Santa Monica Place mall, Macerich Co. is already considering scaling back its proposal.
Backlash against the plans mostly in reaction to the inclusion of three 21-story residential towers has been swift and sharp, with upset callers jamming the switchboard of the mall owner’s Santa Monica offices.
“As far as I’m concerned this is dead on arrival,” said City Councilman Kevin McKeown. “I can’t imagine any circumstance under which I would approve 21-story towers in Santa Monica.”
Like other Santa Monica City Council members, McKeown said that outside of the towers, he is willing to work with Macerich on other plans to redevelop the parcel. For its part, Macerich is already flexible on the plans, according to Randy Brant, a senior vice president with the company.
“Absolutely we understood this would be controversial,” he said. “This, in our opinion, is what works best but I’m more than willing to consider alternatives.”
Macerich has proposed knocking down the struggling 560,000-square-foot indoor mall to extend the Third Street Promenade through the center of the parcel, connecting Broadway with Colorado Avenue.
Underneath would be three 10-acre levels of subterranean parking containing 2,000 or more spaces. There would be an 86,000-square-foot office building and three towers containing 450 condominium and apartment units.
The existing retail space would be rebuilt, with a large, multiple-acre public park installed atop the retail section on the west side of the extended Third Street, gradually sloping down to Second Street. A food court and several restaurants would be included in the park.
Architects and construction officials pegged the cost of the construction, not including improvements for future retail tenants, at between $200 million to $225 million.
It’s a vastly different proposal than the one Macerich put forward nearly two years ago, when it announced plans to keep the mall mostly intact but extend the Promenade through the parcel, sink the parking garages underground and build 14-story towers with apartments, condominiums and office space above them.
Macerich abandoned that plan because of the inefficient floor plans that would result, Brant said. Instead, the company hired the architectural firm Jerde Partnership to come up with the current proposal.
Macerich began showing the plans to city officials and elected leaders over the summer. Many of them say they warned Macerich officials that the towers would draw heat from community members. “I told them I would keep an open mind and listen to the reaction of the community,” said City Councilman Ken Genser. “The reaction I have heard so far is pretty negative.”
Going up?
Marc Blum, a Jerde architect working on the project, said the towers were included because city officials said they wanted 450 units of housing to be part of the redevelopment.
To fit that number of units on the lot, Macerich would either have to build tall slender towers or thick low-rise buildings that would create a wall between the mall and the community and gobble up much of the open space, he said.
“Small footprints of fairly high buildings leave you with enough room to do all these other wonderful things,” Blum said. “If you have it lower, you will cover much more of this with residential and you lose the public park.”
Ellen Brennan, a Santa Monica community activist, said she believes Macerich is using the plan as a negotiating tactic so residents will eventually agree to the 14-story residential towers originally proposed.
“This plan has been put together to throw a bone to this group or that group, so they’ll be so excited they forgive the 21-story towers,” she said.
Brennan, chair of the South Beach Neighbors, a group of 400 beachfront residents, said building more high rises in Santa Monica would ruin the character of the city.
“This is a beach community,” she said. “People move here because it has lots of space, lots of sky, a feeling of openness and the feeling of a small town,” she said. “Now all of a sudden, because of the money to be made, developers are coming in and trying to steal our city.”
As the cost of Santa Monica real estate has skyrocketed, more developers have been pushing for the ability to build taller residential buildings to make their projects pencil out, McKeown said.
Two years ago, the owners of the Fairmont Miramar approached the city’s planning commission about entering into a development agreement that would allow them to build a 17-story residential tower on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Ocean Avenue and significantly expand the hotel’s facilities and parking.
The rebuke from residents and planning commission members was so harsh that ownership has yet to return with scaled-back plans opting instead to work toward an agreement with neighborhood groups before going back to the city.
Fairmont is following the lead of Houston-based Hines, which approached the City Council several years ago for permission to build two office buildings with a cumulative 190,000 square feet at its Lantana Media Campus.
After nearly 100 neighbors of the project turned out to oppose the expansion, Hines worked with Lantana neighbors for more than a year on what would become $1 million in public improvements to appease residents and gain city approvals.
A similar process is envisioned with Macerich. “There will be public hearings and they will be early on,” said Mayor Richard Bloom. “My sense is the developer knows and understands the need for broad public input on this project and is eager to receive that input.”
Flexible planning
From the beginning, Santa Monica officials incorporated the possibility of scaling back the Macerich project in an environmental impact report that’s nearly complete.
The EIR study began nearly three years ago, when the city bought the old Rand Corp. headquarters on Main Street and began a process of redeveloping its Civic Center.
Part of that study takes into consideration the effects of adding a maximum of 450 units of housing on the Macerich site, an 86,000 square foot office building and up to 2,000 underground parking spaces.
The report is scheduled to be heard by the City Council at its Dec. 14 meeting, at the same time Macerich’s proposal is presented. Councilmembers will discuss the plans but no vote is scheduled to be taken.
Andy Agle, assistant director of Santa Monica’s Planning and Community Development Department, said scaling back Macerich’s plans wouldn’t trigger another lengthy EIR process. He said the report looked at the impacts of 150, 300 and 400 units of housing on traffic and the neighborhood overall.
“To be most conservative in our environmental analysis we used the greatest number of units,” he said. “If there was a proposal to have more than 450 units, it would need an additional environmental review but fewer units wouldn’t trigger that process.”
Macerich wants to move quickly on redeveloping the mall, and would like to start construction before the end of 2006, Brant said.
Besides getting through Santa Monica’s notoriously laborious approval process, Macerich will also have to gain approvals from the California Coastal Commission, which has jurisdiction over the site.
