Move to Temporary Library Hits Snag : Seismic Law Causes Delay in Planned Opening in Former Bullock’s Building

Seismic safety concerns could delay the opening of the city’s Temporary Central Library for several months.

Plans are to reopen the library in the former Bullock’s department store at 7th Street and Broadway.

In the wake of fires that destroyed 200,000 books earlier this year at the Central Library, the Board of Library Commissioners and its prospective landlord, L. A. United Investments, have been negotiating terms of a $6.5-million lease to house the library collection until 1991 when an expanded and improved library is expected to be completed.

Studies will determine the anticipated cost of bringing the two main buildings of the Bullock’s complex planned for library use into compliance with city and state seismic codes, and also determine the economic feasibility of the project.

The key players have been unwilling to comment on details dealing with the temporary library for fear they will upset the sensitive lease negotiations relating to human safety and protection of a vast treasury of 2.3 million books from seismic danger.

Earlier Optimism

An earlier, optimistic prediction of moving books into the basement restoration area by this month and a possible opening of library facilities to the public by next March, now is out of the question. The Central Library has been closed to the public since the first, disastrous fire April 29.

The Board of Library Commissioners, headed by Ron Lushing, will not fulfill its commitment to lease 255,730 square feet of space in the Bullock’s building until it learns what the final arbitrator--the city’s Department of Building and Safety--has to say.

The department’s main concern is whether the primary structures for library use (the Earl building, built in 1907 and the Hollenbeck, built in 1912, part of the Bullock’s complex now housing the St. Vincent’s Jewelry Center), can withstand the book load and adequately serve as a public assembly site, according to Karl Deppe, assistant chief of the city’s earthquake division.

All owners of pre-1933-built structures are on notice about their future obligations to upgrade safety factors on their properties, including owners of the historic Bullock’s and nearby Broadway buildings, both former department stores.

Earthquake Hazards Law

The new law (AB-547), approved and signed last July, charges the state Seismic Safety Commission to establish a program of earthquake prediction and earthquake hazard mitigation.

The law requires identification of all potentially hazardous buildings throughout the state by Jan. 1, 1990, and preparation of an advisory report for local jurisdictions containing criteria and procedures by Sept. 1, 1987.

The Seismic Safety Commission estimates that more than 60,000 unreinforced masonry buildings constructed before 1933 remain in use in the state, of which 8,000 are in the Los Angeles area.

The bill states that any “potentially hazardous building” means any building constructed prior to the adoption of local building codes requiring earthquake resistant design of buildings and constructed of unreinforced masonry wall construction.

When the bill was first drafted, the above specification read “unreinforced masonry bearing wall construction,” Deppe said.

Non-Bearing Walls

“When the bill finally came out and the word bearing had been left out, we thought there had been a mistake, so we requested an opinion from the executive secretary of the commission. The omission, they said, was deliberate, so that the requirements would also be applicable to all ‘non-bearing’ wall construction.

“This would then apply to both the Bullock’s and the Broadway buildings, which are steel-framed with masonry filler, or unreinforced non-bearing wall construction.

“This will be the criterion on which we will base a strengthening program, yet to be developed in consultation with the Structural Engineers’ Assn. Currently we do not have the kind of methodology such as we already have for buildings of bearing wall construction,” Deppe added.

“In regard specifically to the proposed temporary library site, and as an added precaution, we have asked the firm of Englekirk & Hart of Pasadena, which is in charge of the structural engineering for the project, to draw plans for significant seismic improvement of the structure. We are concerned, not only with lateral but also vertical stress from the book load, in case of a major earthquake.

Require Testing

“For this reason, we are also requiring testing of the slab (a 150-pound load per square foot), which the engineering firm had already initiated on its own, but which it wants to repeat to reconfirm the weight-bearing capacity of the Bullock’s structures,” Deppe added.

The building and safety official emphasized that thus far its assessment of the project can only be termed a “preliminary review . “

“After the testing is done and the new structural plans submitted and all codes met in the completed architectural plans, only then will we convey our opinion,” he said.

A second concern, the possibility that the buildings may also have an asbestos problem to be dealt with, has arisen more out of speculation than fact. Reportedly, some asbestos problem had existed in the basement area and, according to a former L. A. United executive, was corrected.

No Asbestos Concern

However, no testing by a certified asbestos firm has been done for the remainder of the building, and no permits for asbestos removal in the basement have been issued at any time, according to city records checked by The Times.

The Building and Safety Department did not seem concerned with any asbestos problem, as has been suggested by some library personnel and others.

Deppe said that any indication of asbestos hazard found in buildings is usually referred by its inspectors to OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Agency); the department, as yet, has no special training in this area.

“For good measure, we have set stiffer seismic requirements for the library, about 70% of the current code, which is high for buildings of that vintage. This, due to the public assembly factor, the importance of safeguarding the treasury of books that will be housed there, and also on the basis of the temporary use of the building as a library facility,” he said.

Safety Elements

“If all the above requirements are met, there is no reason why the project should not proceed.”

The building, he said, already incorporates many of the elements in the high-rise, life-and-fire safety package for new construction higher than 75 feet.

A walk-through with Mark Hall, principal, and Jan Muntz of Archiplan, the architectural firm assigned to the project, served to point up one of the chief reasons why the Bullock’s building was chosen over other major contenders.

“We had the advantage of a three-lane alley, St. Vincent’s Court, a vital component to the Central Library’s truck service needs in servicing its branches. We also view this as an opportunity to foster the historic preservation of the site that is already listed with the National Register of Historic Places buildings,” Hall said.

Lushing, Library Board president and its spokesman, said the move out of the Central Library building had been planned since before the major fire on April 29.

Fire-Related Need

“The only new need brought about by the fire is the large restoration and processing center that we will have in the basement of the temporary library facility. The fire, of course, put our scheduling on a cutting edge,” Lushing stated.

“The move to a temporary location represents a major task,” added Library Director Elizabeth Gay. “Our future permanent library will be quite a different library from what we’ve known in the past. This interim period will allow us to work with some of the concepts that are being considered for the future.”

For the first time, the library staff will be experimenting with library units equipped with state-of-the-art electronic equipment, in what the library staff calls “electronic islands,” thus expanding its capability to assist researchers and scholars who will be able to use the computer retrieval system.

Reference desks will be placed on each floor of the 10-story building and a main circulation desk will be located on the second floor, opening into a three-story atrium.

Use Existing Furniture

An investment of about $3 million or $4 million has been committed thus far by L. A. United to accommodate the library function. Much of the library’s existing furniture systems will be used; units to accommodate the electronic islands, reference desks and new shelving will be built under the direction of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, which is working closely with the library staff and with Archiplan on space planning.

Library materials that were damaged in the fire are currently being stored in five buildings, two of which contain freezers.

The 50,000 square feet of allotted restoration area in the Bullock’s basement, plus a periodical pool area of about 25,000 square feet at that sub-level, would be used initially for restoration of the books and for other purposes as the area became vacated.

“A large team of volunteers is expected to be on hand to free our librarians,” Gay said, adding that the morale of the library staff has been low since the arson incidents. “The librarians have, in fact, been removed from their profession by these criminal acts and they feel violated and anxious to get back to dealing with the users on a one-to-one basis.”