Caltrans Takes Heat for Dropping Its Drawers

Drawers flying, the desk dropped from the fifth-floor window and crashed onto the pavement below. Right behind it tumbled a file cabinet, a worktable and a bookcase.

It was spring cleaning, Caltrans-style.

Workers this week were sweeping out state transportation officials’ former regional headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. Chairs, drafting tables, cubical walls and dry-erase message boards were unceremoniously heaved out windows of the Main Street building as passersby gaped in disbelief.

Caltrans leaders -- who moved eight months ago across the street to a new, $190 - million headquarters -- labeled the old office furniture as unneeded junk. A wrecking crew hired by the state was emptying the abandoned building in preparation for its demolition.

But one person’s junk can be another person’s joy.

“It’s appalling,” said Rose Curtis, a counselor with Haven House, a Pasadena emergency shelter for battered women and children, who was in the Civic Center area for a meeting as furnishings flew out Caltrans’ windows.

“There are nonprofits that could use that furniture.”

Added Linda Gomez, with Rancho Cucamonga-based Southern California Housing and Development Corp., which creates and manages affordable housing for low-income tenants: “Grass-roots organizations, faith-based groups -- I’m sure somebody would find a use for all of that.”

In fact, on Friday there was a 2,246-name waiting list of Los Angeles-area charitable groups and schools seeking donations of office furniture and equipment, said Bert Ball, executive director of L.A. Shares, a nonprofit organization that matches donors with recipients.

“We could have immediately placed this material. The demand is staggering,” Ball said. “Throwing it out costs more than giving it away.”

Judy Gish, a Caltrans spokeswoman, said the decision to scrap the furniture came after officials determined the pieces were not salvageable.

“It’s damaged and not usable for any purpose,” Gish said. “Everything that was usable was either moved to the new building or redistributed to other agencies by means of being sold. Really, what you’re seeing is unusable junk.”

The state’s Department of General Services, which seeks to recycle surplus material through a property-reuse program, said most Caltrans employees took their office chairs with them to their new headquarters.

Other furniture was donated to governmental offices in Buena Park and Costa Mesa and to Patton State Hospital, department spokesman Matt Bender said Friday.

Bender said the new 13-story Caltrans building came equipped with new workstations for its 1,400 state employees. And others agreed that it would be a crime to put hand-me-down furnishings into the architectural gem, which was designed by 2005 Pritzker Prize-winner Thom Mayne.

“That old furniture couldn’t go in that beautiful building. It just wouldn’t be right. I’m of the feeling furnishings should fit the building,” said downtown arts designer Kjell Hagen, who has toured the Caltrans building.

Still, even some Caltrans workers were surprised by the cascade of old furniture.

“It’s a waste. It’s usable. It could be given to poor schools or to churches, but no. It’s sad, really sad,” said Everett Jones, a Caltrans graphic designer who lingered outside the old building on his lunch hour as furnishings tumbled five floors.

The impact flattened many of the metal cabinets and tables. In the cleanup, which has been going on for days, the furniture is piled in a fenced-off alleyway running alongside the original Caltrans building constructed in the 1940s and a more recent addition until it is scooped up and hauled away.

The state would have had little success at making a profit had it tried to sell the furniture at a 1st Street public parking lot sale, commercial furniture experts said.

“People like to buy used, but they want it to look good, not dented or dirty,” said Tanya Rooney, sales administrator with Darton Design in Long Beach. Because of that, her company buys only inventories that are 2 or 3 years old for resale, she said.

But there can be an unexpected market for older office furniture: trendy homeowners.

Silver Lake furniture shop owner Pepe Mora examined a photograph of the Caltrans castoffs and proclaimed them valuable.

“It’s sellable stuff, very sellable,” he said, pointing to desks in the pavement pile. “Those 1950s and ‘60s looks are very popular. People remove the paint with chemicals and leave the bare metal.

“They can go for $900 and up. The metallic look is really hot now.”

Except at Caltrans. Five-stories down, its used-furniture market is bottoming out.