Culver City Acquiring Final Parcels Required for Parking-Lot Project

Culver City is acquiring the last four properties in a city block needed to build a parking lot requested by two film studios and a hospital.

The city is studying plans for the parking lot on the 66,000-square-foot parcel, bounded by Main Street and Washington, Culver and Ince boulevards. It deemed the site too small for a new city hall and civic center.

The Redevelopment Agency last week took steps to acquire the Adams hotel and Big Ed’s bar at 3896 Main St. and 9381 Washington Blvd. The agency is also acquiring Continental Guns, 9357 Washington Blvd., and La Ballona restaurant, 9369 Washington.

Agency officials refused to disclose how much the agency is willing to pay for the properties. The agency has been acquiring pieces of the triangular block since 1978. It has already invested about $1.5 million in the block, most of which is vacant and covered with weeds. The agency’s funds are derived from the sale of bonds and from taxes.

Susan Berg, a redevelopment agency project manager, said the agency may build a below- and above-ground parking lot on the entire parcel, known as Block C. The agency has yet to determine how many spaces it will have and how much it will charge for parking, she said.

The agency has four public parking lots.

David Paradis, executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, said representatives of some of the city’s largest employers told city officials at a meeting in June that a downtown parking structure is needed because their operations have expanded in recent years.

“One of the problems that we have had in downtown Culver City,” Paradis said, “is that some of the businesses there have been very successful and involve a (high) number of employees and others coming into town. In the daytime, our population swells from 40,000 to 200,000 with all the (out-of-town) employees. . . . Parking has gotten very scarce.”

Businesses represented at the meeting included Lorimar-Telepictures, Laird International Studios and Brotman Medical Center, all of which are within several blocks of the proposed parking lot, Paradis said.

Berg said it could not be determined when the agency will be able to buy the remaining properties. The agency will have to pay relocation benefits and help find new housing for the 30 low-income tenants living in the Adams hotel, she said.