Both Sides State Their Case on Judicial Research Center

An ambitious plan to turn a complex of bungalows on the grounds of the old Vista del Arroyo hotel into a national center for judicial research and reform threatens to become the focus of the next in a series of public debates on the utilization of the city’s historic structures.

The plan for the Western Justice Center, which is being championed by a blue-ribbon panel of jurists, including four federal judges, already has residents lining up on opposite sides of the issue. The bungalows, many of them built by prominent architects during the heyday of Pasadena’s resort era, are owned by the federal government.

The central Vista del Arroyo building, a seven-story beige structure with an ornate bell tower, on South Grand Avenue on the bluff above Arroyo Seco, was itself the subject of a lengthy public debate before being rehabilitated to house the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Critics said the $10-million renovation, which was finished last year, was too costly.

At issue now is whether the 14 secondary structures, many of them architectural gems, should be turned over to a nonprofit educational foundation or sold to private developers, who would rehabilitate them and return them to residential use.

“I feel that the justice center would be adding considerably to the prestige of the city,” Pasadena Mayor John Crowley said. “Organizations of national stature should be welcomed.” The Board of City Directors recently concluded a yearlong public discussion on the fate of the Huntington Sheraton hotel, which is to be torn down and replaced with a duplicate.

“We prefer that the area be maintained as residential,” said Tom Siefert, president of the West Pasadena Residents Assn. He described the new federal courthouse as the one “glaring exception” to the residential character of his neighborhood.

Judge Dorothy Nelson of the 9th Circuit Court, who chairs the commission that is pushing the plan, described the proposed law center as a “campus” of national law reform organizations. Groups such as the Commission on the Competency of Lawyers, the Institute of Judicial Administration, the Center for International Commercial Arbitration and the American Law Institute would rehabilitate bungalows at their own expense to house their western operations, she said.

“All the national law reform organizations are now located in the eastern part of the country,” Nelson said. “Most legal research is taking place in the East, though there are more judges, both state and federal, in the West. The Los Angeles trial court system is the largest in the country. It seems very appropriate to have a legal research center here.”

The commission, which was set up by 9th Circuit Chief Judge James Browning, has received endorsements from a number of jurists of national stature, including U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist. “I highly concur in the idea that there should be a center in the West and indeed in the Los Angeles area,” Rehnquist said in a letter to the panel.

Support From Law Schools

Nelson, who is a former dean of the USC Law School, has also gained endorsements from area law schools, including UCLA, Southwestern, Loyola and Pepperdine, as well as USC. “They see it as a convenient place for visiting law professors doing research at the center, while teaching at the law schools on a visiting basis,” Nelson said.

Browning, reached at his chambers in San Francisco, said the center could become “an institution to rival the Rose Bowl in terms of national recognition for Pasadena.”

While Pasadena residents debate the merits of the plan, however, the U.S. General Services Administration is preparing to sell the bungalows, which have been on the federal government’s list of surplus properties since 1975. Mary Filippini, executive assistant to GSA Regional Administrator Edwin Thomas, said the “disposal process” will begin around Jan. 1. The bungalows could be sold as early as March, she said.

She said the group proposing the justice center can purchase the bungalows but there are no plans to turn the property over to a nonprofit organization. “At this point, we have no intention of delaying the sale,” Filippini said.

But Nelson said the commission plans to make use of federal regulations that permit the donation of surplus federal property to educational foundations. She said such an arrangement would require the approval of both Education Secretary William Bennett and Terrence Golden, the head of the General Services Administration. “Judge Browning, Judge Anthony Kennedy (also of the 9th Circuit) and I plan to go to Washington by early January to make a presentation to Mr. Bennett and Mr. Golden,” Nelson said.

Educational Foundation

She added that the group is forming an educational foundation.

Besides Nelson and Kennedy, the commission includes Federal District Court Judges Terry Hatter and Mariana Pfaelzer of the Central District of Los Angeles; Pasadena’s Vice Mayor William Thomson, an attorney; and a number of prominent lawyers.

But residents of the West Pasadena neighborhood are concerned about the effects of a large institution in their community. “There are still open questions about what governmental agencies will occupy the site and about what the effects will be on traffic and parking,” Siefert said.

Donna Secundy, treasurer of the West Pasadena Residents Assn., to whom Nelson presented the plan two weeks ago, said she is apprehensive about the commission’s ability to carry through with the plan. “When you’re dealing with GSA and the government, there’s a lot of red tape,” said Secundy, who lives across the street from the site. “It will take a lot of money to do the kinds of things she’s talking about. That could mean leaving the property a mess for a long, long time.”

Secundy added that the justice center could be a dissonant element in the residential area. “Nelson is talking about people coming from all over the world to large conferences,” Secundy said. “That wouldn’t be in keeping with the residential feel of the area. That’s the bottom line.”

She said Nelson has also been unclear about plans to maintain the bungalows. “She was vague on exactly how many bungalows they were talking about tearing down to maintain parking,” she said.

Noted Architects

Some of the bungalows were designed by noted architects such as Sylvanus Marston and Myron Hunt (who also designed the Rose Bowl and the Huntington hotel). The bungalows were part of the Vista del Arroyo hotel until the entire complex was taken over by the Army in 1943 as a recuperative facility for wounded soldiers. The bungalows have been largely empty and in disrepair since the 1960s.

The entire site is on the National Register of Historic Places. The three bungalows closest to the main building have been turned over to the court as ancillary structures. Plans for rehabilitating the remaining bungalows have been discussed by various groups for more than a decade.

Some of the structures are considerably larger than the word bungalow suggests. Among these are Maxwell House (which has no connection with the coffee), a stately mansion facing Grand Avenue.

Nelson said there are no plans to remove any of the bungalows. “We intend to work hand in hand with Pasadena Heritage,” she said. “Only if we all agree that a particular bungalow is not worth saving or that the need for off-street parking is so great that one bungalow could be removed would we make a move like that,” she said.

Pasadena Heritage, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the city’s historic buildings, favors a residential use for the bungalows, said Claire Bogaard, the organization’s director.

Although the commission would not raise funds for the proposed law center, Nelson said there is money available from foundations and the federal government, as well as from the organizations that would join the center.

Sources of Funds

Among possible sources of funds, she said, is the National Institute of Justice, a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice, which has expressed interest in setting up a “multi-door courthouse” program in Pasadena. Similar programs to divert litigants to ombudsmen or arbitrators have already been set up in Tulsa, Okla., Houston and Washington at about $750,000 a year, Nelson said.

She also cited recent legislation in California permitting counties to increase court filing fees by $3 to fund alternative programs to resolve disputes. One of the organizations expressing interest in the proposal is the Community Dispute Resolution Center.

Nelson added that many organizations that have expressed interest in becoming a part of the center are “national organizations who have their own funding.”

“Organizations have been calling every day, wanting to know how they can become a part of it,” she said. “Once we get off the ground, it will be a matter of selecting from among all of those who want to move in.”