As a founding member of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights, Patricia Hoffman has spent the past quarter-century advocating for the homeless and for affordable housing. She’s also done her share to frustrate developers who sought to build exclusive projects exploiting the seaside town’s lofty demographics.
So it’s no surprise that Hoffman considers Macerich Co.’s plans to replace Santa Monica Place with a new outdoor mall featuring three 21-story residential towers to be objectionable.
But not out of the question either.
“There has been a general maturing within the community,” she conceded. “If this were even suggested a number of years ago people would have freaked. That’s not the case now.”
To be sure, battle lines are being drawn over the ambitious $300 million plan to turn Santa Monica Place into an open-air extension of the popular Third Street Promenade. Rancorous debate is expected this Tuesday night, when the Santa Monica City Council is scheduled to consider the proposal for the first time in public.
Yet unlike 20 years ago, the new mall isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition. Sooner or later, both sides suggest, a compromise is likely to be reached mostly because each has so much to gain from seeing the mall replaced.
“Santa Monica Place is the blood clot in the circulation system of our downtown,” said former mayor Michael Feinstein and a member of SMRR. “We need to move forward with negotiations to heal the patient. We can agree exactly how through negotiations, but to say ‘No’ at this point would really be to miss an opportunity.”
Finding common cause
Since the renters’ group came to dominate Santa Monica politics 25 years ago, it has stood in almost evangelical opposition to most every large-scale private project that’s been proposed. Developers have alternated between trying to oust anti-growth forces from City Hall and taking their proposals to other cities.
This time could be different. Just as members of the once-radical SMRR have matured, so have the demographics of Santa Monica. Now home to an increasingly affluent citizenry, with median home prices routinely topping $1 million in many areas, the political climate is not what it was in the city’s more radical days.
Both sides recognize they have some common goals, and activists like Hoffman have acknowledged Macerich’s willingness to negotiate the more controversial aspects of its plan.
“I do think something is likely to get done there,” Hoffman said. “I think there is so much opportunity to do something really positive. We can meet their need of a productive business site and our needs in the community.”
Macerich bought the mall five years ago with the intention of redeveloping the center to better fit with the city’s booming Third Street Promenade. Its proposal contains aspects that members of SMRR (pronounced “Smur”) have had little trouble embracing a park, for example, and an open layout that provides easier access to the Civic Center and the beachfront.
The current plan Macerich’s second since it bought the property includes rebuilding the 560,000-square foot mall, while extending the Promenade through its center to connect Broadway with Colorado Avenue.
The proposal also calls for 450 apartments and condominiums, an 86,000-square-foot office building and three underground levels of parking containing more than 2,000 spaces. A 2.5-acre park would slant down from the mall’s roof to the corner with Second Street and Colorado Avenue.
The biggest lightning rod in the plan: three 21-story towers for residential condominiums and apartments an element that is both controversial and, according to the developer, economically necessary.
“If we can’t come up with an economic model that makes sense, if the project doesn’t offer returns that make sense, then we are going to have to look at more of a (modest) remodel of the existing facility,” said Randy Brant, senior vice president in charge of the project.
Community leaders are eager for more downtown housing and the Promenade extension, which would connect the city’s central commercial corridor with the Santa Monica Pier, the Civic Center and a future light rail station. But many of them aren’t willing to accept tall buildings in exchange.
SMRR, which has four members on the seven-member city council, last week not only blasted the proposal but said it wouldn’t negotiate down from the 21 stories that Macerich has proposed.
“The primary thing that caught people’s attention is the height of the buildings,” said Councilman Richard Bloom. “That has had the effect of obscuring every other issue that we need to consider carefully.”
D & #233;j & #341; vu?
Using federal grants and local bond money, the city first built a pedestrian mall on Third Street in the 1960s, but 20 years later the few shops that remained were tattered and attracted few shoppers. The homeless regularly bathed in the strip’s water fountains.
To enliven downtown, Santa Monica officials wanted an enclosed mall, the type that had lured away most of its shoppers a decade after the Promenade first opened.
Local architect Frank Gehry designed Santa Monica Place with the expectation that the hulking building would bridge the disparate centers of the city, connecting the struggling commercial district with the Civic Center and pier.
But economics prevailed and owner Rouse Co. could only get enough funding for the mall portion. To lure Robinsons-May and Macys as anchor tenants, Rouse gave them long-term sweetheart deals that charge little to no rent. Those leases are still in effect.
When the center opened in 1980, it was an immediate hit, but it had the effect of drawing the few remaining shoppers on Main Street and the Promenade. By the late-1980s, city officials led by former Mayor Denny Zane and downtown property owners such as Ernie Kaplan came up with the funds to refurbish the Promenade into its current configuration and design. With new movie theaters and restaurants, it quickly overtook Santa Monica Place, which began losing tenants to the outdoor mall.
In 2000, Macerich purchased the property from Rouse in a $130 million deal, with the intent to overhaul the mall. In anticipation of rebuilding, Macerich has been negotiating short-term leases for the last several years leading to several vacancies.
Against that backdrop comes the latest Macerich plan.
“If the choice is between what they have proposed and simply moving the food court and tinkering with the parking garages, then I would prefer the modest remake,” said Zane, a co-founder of SMRR. “They shouldn’t be able to make some wild proposal and then force us to negotiate down from there. That shapes the dialogue in exactly the wrong way.”
Zane and some members of SMRR would like Macerich to start over with a series of public meetings to bring residents’ views into any plan it presents to the city, and then begin negotiating a development agreement.
Others in SMRR want Macerich to hold off on its plans until the city can finish a new development roadmap for its downtown a process that could take another three years.
Bloom, one of the SMRR-aligned council members, said he isn’t against entering into negotiations now. Fixing the weekend traffic gridlock surrounding the Promenade and creating modern, workable parking garages are benefits worth discussing, he said.
“This project gives us the opportunity to retool so that it all works better,” Bloom said. “There is going to be a lot of discussion and horse trading ultimately between the city and the developer before it’s in any shape to move forward.”
Macerich officials, for their part, say they were surprised at the public backlash. The company had come before the council nearly two years ago to present a version that would have kept the existing mall but sliced it in half to extend the Promenade through its center. That plan was scrapped because it resulted in inefficient floor plans and would have limited accessibility to second-floor shops.
Since then, the developer has been talking with city planning officials off-and-on and has completed an environmental impact report for the housing and office additions.
“One interesting comment we’ve heard from people is, ‘Why would Macerich present these plans without public input?'” Brant said. “It is, for the most part, private property. Where else does one who owns property start? What’s wrong with the way we approached it?”
Planning for project
From the start, Brant said, the idea has always been to come up with the ideal project, enter into negotiations with the city and then hold public hearings to give the community a chance to have its say. Changes would be made before the final plans went before City Council for approval.
“We are formulating our plan for community input and workshops, we’re working with our consultants on how best to go about it,” he said.
Whatever plan emerges must pencil out for Macerich, Brant stressed. Adding housing, especially for-sale condominiums, gives the company a chance to obtain enough revenue to make up for the arrangements it has with Macy’s and Robinsons-May.
Wally Marks III, whose family has owned property along Third Street for more than 40 years, agreed that improving the mall is important for all downtown landlords and businesses. “It’s vital Macerich succeeds in rebuilding the mall,” Marks said. “It’s important for all property owners. They are the dominant source of advertising dollars for our downtown and the sheer number of their stores anchor our district.”
Marks, a board member of the Bayside District Corp., a coalition of downtown business leaders, city officials and residents, said he isn’t concerned with the height of the proposed towers. But he does worry in almost classic Santa Monica fashion that the new complex could be “elitist.”
Except for a segment of subsidized housing, the apartments and condominiums onsite would be priced for the very wealthy. “I don’t have any problems with the height … if it makes the project fly,” he said. “I just want to make sure it’s accessible to all people.”
On the other side are those siding with Zane, who scoffs at the community benefits Macerich has offered. He said the Promenade is working fine without a fourth block, which isn’t required to connect the different areas of the city. He also argues that no one will walk from the Promenade to Main Street because the distance is too far.
“Visually speaking, if it were opened up, all you would see is the Sears building,” he added. “The urban design objectives here are not objectives that would lead us to accept undue congestion and undue height.”
Zane further says that Macerich’s “park” would be more of a venue for patrons of the adjacent restaurants. The patch wouldn’t be on the city’s inventory of parks and it wouldn’t pass the smell test of local activist Jerry Rubin, who has said, “It’s not a park unless you can throw a Frisbee in it.”
It’s clear there are enough ideas in Macerich’s proposal to keep many residents and city officials interested. And while changes still need to be made, some are willing to keep an open mind.
“SMRR is an important voice but it’s not the only voice,” Marks said. “People in Santa Monica are smart enough to realize that compromise is the way to go.”
