Doubt Grows Whether Fitness Center Will Be Built

It’s unanimous. From President Reagan on down, everyone seems to want the National Fitness Academy to be built in Aliso Viejo.

Uncertainty is growing, however, over whether the nonprofit, privately financed academy to train coaches will be built there after all.

Ten months have passed since the trustees of the National Fitness Foundation announced that they had rejected sites elsewhere in Southern California and in Indianapolis, Houston and Dallas in favor of the south Orange County location. And still no permits have been issued, no earth moved, no foundation sunk.

Some backers of the academy blame the lack of activity on red tape and bureaucrats at the county Planning Commission and state Coastal Commission. But government officials say the academy’s promoters are to blame because they have refused to take the steps necessary to get the project going.

The trustees’ goal of getting the facility built before Reagan leaves office on Jan. 20, 1989, is in danger.

The foundation’s board has told its architects to take another look at sites that were rejected. Board members had planned to meet Jan. 14 to discuss whether to look for pastures greener than those of Aliso Viejo, but now that meeting has been postponed, probably for at least two weeks.

County officials are expressing frustration at spending nearly $60,000, then another $11,000, and still not having a firm commitment from the foundation. They express more frustration at what they say is the foundation’s failure to modify plans for the academy to make them acceptable to the Planning Commission and Coastal Commission.

Foundation officials express frustration at what they see as slow movement by the county.

The foundation’s chairman and the driving force behind the idea of the academy is George Allen, former coach of professional football teams, including the Washington Redskins and Los Angeles Rams. Allen said that in moving from the sports arena to the political arena he has found “too much red tape,” and his temper has sometimes frayed.

“As a coach I’m used to having people do things the way they should be done and no politics,” Allen said in a recent interview. “As a football coach I’ve always gotten things done on time and been successful. But when you get into politics, you’re playing games.”

Allen said the $50-million academy will emphasize youth programs and leadership training. It will train coaches, serve as a clearinghouse for information on physical fitness and sports, and organize a speakers bureau of leaders in the fitness field.

There will be playing fields, an amphitheater, gymnasium and auditorium. Professionals in the physical fitness field will come for training and classes.

Orange County officials regard the academy as a source of prestige that will lure visitors and reinforce the county’s image as a place where 1984 Olympics events took place.

But the officials also see the 200-acre site straddling Aliso Creek as a locale originally meant for public enjoyment of open space, a greenbelt that should be left as untouched as possible.

Their views are shared by staff members on the Coastal Commission, which must approve the plans for the academy because it is only 2 1/2 miles from the ocean.

Peter Douglas, executive director of the Coastal Commission, said in an interview that the greenbelt was planned as a relief from the Aliso Viejo development now being built by the Mission Viejo Co. The company will turn the land over to the county, which in turn will lease it rent-free to the academy.

The area “was intended as a public recreation facility,” Douglas said, and the commission will take a close look at converting a public area to a private one. “We were concerned about what public amenities, public uses would be built into the project.”

Before the fitness center was proposed, the Coastal Commission had approved a plan to build a smaller conference center at the site, agreeing that money generated by the center could pay for maintenance of the rest of the greenbelt area. That plan ruled out cars, allowing a shuttle bus to take visitors to the center.

‘A Wonderful Concept’

Fitness academy planners, however, are expecting the center to generate traffic of 350 cars a day. Plans for the center call for an access road that would require leveling large amounts of land. Said Supervisor Thomas F. Riley: “The road will never be built that way.”

Douglas said the academy “is a wonderful concept, and it’s a great idea, and I think it’s the kind of thing the country has needed and should have had years ago.”

“But given our charge under the Coastal Act, we have to be sure that it meets . . . state law,” Douglas said. The academy can be built at Aliso Viejo, but “it will take some refinement and revision of the plans as I see them now.”

Douglas met shortly before Christmas with Allen, architect Jim Luckman and such officials as Riley’s top aide, Peter Herman, and the county’s planning director, Robert Fisher.

Afterward, Herman said Douglas and other Coastal Commission staffers “held out a great deal of hope” that they would approve modified plans to build the facility at Aliso Viejo.

If the plans are submitted in acceptable form, the commission could approve them in two months, Douglas said.

Impatience Grows

But as the months slip by, Jim Luckman’s father, Charles, gets more impatient.

Charles Luckman, 76, is a former president of Lever Bros., maker of a host of household commodities. He made the cover of Time magazine in 1946, but six years later left industry for architecture. His firm prepared the master plan for Cape Canaveral, designed the Johnson Spacecraft Center in Houston, and planned the Forum in Inglewood and much of Los Angeles International Airport.

Though no longer a partner in his son’s architectural firm, Charles Luckman is a special adviser to the trustees of the National Fitness Foundation and a member of the building committee of the United States Fitness Academy.

Luckman said he urged the foundation not to build in Indianapolis, but to move “into the warm weather in the belief that a fitness academy had to be able to operate year-round.” He said he thought and still thinks that Aliso Viejo is the best site.

But “I simply have my doubts whether ultimately it will ever be built” at the site picked 10 months ago. “I shouldn’t say ever, but within the next few years.”

‘So Little Accomplished’

“From coast to coast we have worked for counties and cities and states and the federal government, all over the country,” Luckman said. “Frankly, in our experience we have never run into a situation that has taken so long to get so little accomplished.”

Luckman said that if all approvals were granted today, it would still take 14 to 16 months to do the architectural drawings and 30 months to build the facility. He said the county’s assurance many months ago that it could meet Allen’s promise to Reagan to have the facility built while Reagan was President “is not valid.”

There is also the problem of the $50 million.

Allen and other supporters say they do not expect trouble in raising the money, primarily from corporations. On one page of a slick brochure promoting the academy is a picture of Reagan, Allen and Charles Luckman looking over an artist’s rendering of the facility. Below the picture is a list of “elements available for financial contributions,” including a library, dormitories, auditorium, gymnasium, dining facilities, “flame of fitness” and “gateway of strength.”

But foundation officials say they cannot begin raising funds until they can assure donors of a definite site. Thus they want to obtain the permits quickly. County officials say the way to accomplish this is to redraw the plans to meet the wishes of the Planning Commission and the Coastal Commission.

‘Still No. 1 Site’

Allen said he expects to sign an option to lease the Aliso Viejo property, which he labels “still my No. 1 site.”

The site would also seem to be the choice of the nation’s First Fan.

In a letter to Allen, Reagan wrote that “I am pleased that you have selected a site familiar to me, Southern California, as the location for this magnificent facility.

“The weather is ideal and the people are spirited and physically active. You have indicated, too, that you intend to have the Academy built before the end of my term in office. I commend this dynamic leadership.”