L.B. OKs Plan for 24-Hour Child Center in Downtown

Plans to create the first 24-hour child-care center in downtown Long Beach have won support from the City Council, despite concerns over the limited parking and recreation facilities available at the unconventional site--a 1903 retail building formerly used as a Masonic Temple.

By a 4-1 vote, with Edd Tuttle dissenting, the council Tuesday approved a five-year zoning permit enabling developer Lloyd Ikerd to operate a facility to care for up to 150 infants and toddlers at a time in the historic structure at 230 Pine Ave., near Broadway.

Ikerd, who must now qualify for a state operating license, said he expects to open the center in three months to serve the city’s growing downtown work force. The center will operate on three eight-hour shifts, accommodating as many as 450 children up to 6 years old. Fees are expected to be slightly below the average for child-care centers in the Long Beach area.

Although Ikerd acknowledged shortcomings of the site, which has only two parking spaces and relies on a long, narrow outdoor play area augmented by a basement playground, he asked council members to support the project as a way to inject economic life into the troubled Pine Avenue commercial area. The developer said he has been unable to find a suitable retail tenant for the building after spending $1.5 million and 2 1/2 years on its restoration.

Chance of Success for Site

“This is not the highest and best use of the property--I realize that,” Ikerd told council members. But the center, he said, would offer at least a chance of success for a restoration project that otherwise will fail. He said he hopes the center could be moved in five years as demand for retail space in the area improves.

“We want to bring some activity to Pine Avenue,” Ikerd said. “We need some successes in downtown Long Beach. The best use (of the property) is not a vacant building.”

Planning commissioners unanimously supported plans for the center in a vote taken earlier this year, but that action was appealed by then-Councilman Marc Wilder, who criticized the adequacy of facilities and disputed the wisdom of placing a child-care facility in a downtown retail center.

Testifying Tuesday, the former councilman acknowledged that child-care centers are needed in downtown Long Beach. But he said Ikerd’s proposal runs contrary to plans to maintain Pine Avenue as the city’s primary downtown commercial strip.

“It seems we’ve lost our perspective on Pine Avenue’s importance to downtown as a retail center,” Wilder said.

Wilder urged council members to address parking and security issues at the site. Two parking spaces are inadequate for a facility that normally requires 10 spaces for arriving and departing parents, he said. Drivers stopping to drop off their children could create a problem on busy Pine Avenue, he said.

A security guard and additional lighting should be required for the short alley that borders the building, Wilder warned.

“Let’s remember, this would be a 24-hour facility,” he said.

Under questioning from council members, Ikerd argued that two parking spaces will be adequate during the center’s first few months, when enrollment is expected to be about 25 children. An agreement with the operator of a nearby commercial lot will enable him to add parking spaces as they are needed.

A security guard and additional lighting outside the facility already are planned, he said.

Ikerd and partner Thomas Lange, a child-care licensing consultant, told council members that the basement playground--criticized in the past by skeptics of the project--will be an advantage to children on cool, damp days when outdoor play would be inadvisable. “In the Midwest . . . we’ve had indoor playgrounds for years and years and years,” Lange said.

The indoor playground contains about 6,500 square feet and will be used along with a 10-foot-wide by 150-foot-long outdoor play area. In addition, Lange said, children will be transported by vans to Shoreline Park--a drive of three or four minutes.

“They will have outdoor activity as much as possible,” he said.

Councilman Wallace Edgerton said he felt comforted by Ikerd’s assurance that the basement playground would be safe in an earthquake.