State Seeking More Creative Uses for Freeway Airspace : Potential Seen for Additional Property Leases
The California Department of Transportation, popularly known as Caltrans, is looking ahead to more creative uses of its freeway air rights, similar to those developed in other states.
It plans to intensify and accelerate its activities throughout the freeway system with the aim of increasing revenues from the adaptation of dormant space.
Roger Williams, airspace manager for Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura counties, said, “Caltrans is expanding primarily for the cash return, and we are attempting to attract more varied uses for space purchased for freeways, but never used,” Williams said.
“It’s a way to get more revenue for the state highway fund, since each dollar raised in California brings in more federal dollars. It also means getting those properties back on the tax rolls.”
He said the Los Angeles district office has 115 freeway lessee accounts, 30 of which are long term with buildings on the sites, while the others involve interim land uses, such as parking.
Additional Potential Sites
“They are among 380 active airspace leases on California’s freeway system (above, under and next to freeways), but there are 450 additional sites that are potentially available,” he said.
The advantage in leasing airspace through its Air Space Development Program, is usually a 55-year lease for those who want it and no property taxes, although subject to possessory interest levies, he said.
The state currently draws $6 million in annual revenue from leased freeway property, of which $2 million is derived from the Los Angeles area.
A variety of uses along the freeway rights of way have existed for some time--notably the Rusty Pelican restaurant at the interchange of the Glendale (2) and Ventura (134) freeways, and the 208-room Midtown Hilton Hotel at Vermont Avenue and the Hollywood (101) Freeway.
Freeway as a Roof
The first building in the Southland to use the bottom of a freeway as its roof was completed in 1976 at 1651 S. Naomi Ave., directly under the Santa Monica Freeway. The project, an industrial garment facility, was built by C. Odell/Sentous of Carlsbad around the columned viaduct support, to city, county, and state standards for air quality and soundproofing.
The only lease negotiation for space above a freeway in the Los Angeles area occurred when MCA built a bridge over the Hollywood Freeway and leased that airspace for $1,600 a month.
The privately built bridge spanning the freeway to Universal City at Cahuenga Pass was completed in 1983 under a 75-year agreement. Subsequently, the entertainment entity donated the improvement to the city.
Williams agrees that the state and, in particular the Southland, has little to show in the way of well-planned, imaginative “lidding” along its freeways.
A call to Roger Kezar, realty officer for the U. S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration, revealed a total of 34 sites in 13 states reflecting lidding of freeways, of which 13 involve the private sector.
Sacramento Space Uses
In California, a deck over Sacramento’s Interstate 80 accommodates a gas station, parking and restaurant complex, Kezar said, and a Sacramento bank straddles 5th Street in another example of a private-sector project above an urban transportation system.
Reno has a hotel and casino complex spanning Interstate 80; an airport extension spans Interstate 70 in Denver, and Chicago has a transit station over Interstate 90. In Baltimore, a school and playground sit atop Interstate 70 North, and in Fall River, Mass., its city hall is perched over Interstate 95.
In addition to several uses of airspace over transport arteries in Washington, D.C. on Interstates 95 and 295, the more notable creative uses of freeway airspace are to be found in Massachusetts and Washington state.
The knitting back of Boston’s urban fabric, torn by its turnpike project 20 years ago, led to versatile use of airspace owned by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority. A multiple-use complex now unites the once-separated Prudential Center at the northwest of the turnpike with Copley Square at the northeast.
Multiple Space Uses
In Seattle, an ongoing development of its Interstate 5 master plan started 20 years ago, and will culminate in the construction of a convention and trade center, to be completed in 1988. It has resulted in productive multiple uses of freeway air rights and in reuniting Seattle’s business and First Hill residential districts by pedestrian access through a waterscaped park over the freeway.
Asked why Caltrans has done so little to encourage similar aesthetic and imaginative uses of freeway air rights, Williams said there was no one culprit. “It’s hard to pinpoint just where things start to lag. Some of it is due to insufficient cooperation between the city and state agencies involved, and the question of politics and economics also enters into it.
“We could be doing a lot with developers in the planning stages of new freeways and freeway links, so that construction of freeways could better and more economically accommodate airspace uses.
“An amendment to Assembly Bill 2903, approved by the governor in July of 1986, authorizes Caltrans to lease air rights to public or private sectors up to 99 years, and requires that the department consider future lease potential of those areas when planning new state highway projects.
At Harbor Freeway
“There is tremendous potential for use of freeway airspace for high rise and hotels in the downtown Los Angeles area, especially that which occurs over the Harbor Freeway between the Hollywood Freeway and 8th Street, where the land values are so high.
“Los Angeles could position itself to do a project in one of several locations,” Williams added, “including at the Hollywood Freeway terminus near Civic Center.
“We have had dialogue with several developers, but, due to political squabbles, many of the initial efforts have been blocked.”
Kenfield E. Kennedy, chairman of Matlow & Kennedy, and Robert F. MacLeod, president of commercial development for Lowe Development Corp., an arm of Lowe Enterprises, have both tried unsuccessfully to “shake the bureaucracy” into initiating some creative use of freeway air rights along the Harbor Freeway.
“Our thought was to expand our headquarters, which adjoins the freeway at 3rd and Figueroa streets,” Kennedy said. “We proposed creating a platform that would span the freeway, connecting the Park Office Building at 3rd and Figueroa (Street) with Beaudry (Avenue) on the west of the Harbor Freeway by means of an attractive landscaped pedestrian access.
‘Nothing Attractive’
“There is nothing attractive about a freeway--it is an ugly cut, and could just as easily be a tunnel. We proposed what we feel was a contribution to urban design. But we finally gave up; we just couldn’t get through the maze of bureaucracy.
“We even contacted the CRA (Community Redevelopment Agency) for their support, but their policy has been to have bridges over freeways, not like in Europe, where bridges serve pedestrians, not just cars, and often include shops and cafes. I believe that as our population becomes more dense, we are going to have to look into these alternatives.”
MacLeod described a freeway air rights project, suggested by Neal Roberts, in which his firm worked with Caltrans to negotiate a lease on the right of way, presently covered with ivy, as a footing for an eight-acre deck across the freeway from Beaudry to 6th Street and to Union Bank Square at 4th Street. The park area, he said, would have been almost 1 1/2 times the size of Pershing Square.
“Our feeling was that we could create an imaginative project and contribute something to the city in the form of a controlled pedestrian park with waterworks that would be appreciated by users of surrounding buildings, in addition to at least one building of architectural significance,” he stated.
Hotel-Office Structure
“We envisioned a $225-million project, with about 900,000 to 1.4 million feet of built space, to accommodate a hotel at the ground plane, office building on the top floors. Parking, which the site could not accommodate for large institutional tenants, could circulate to the west side, with the added amenity of a shuttle service,” the executive added.
“The state could envision from such a project in the range of $2 million in revenues over a 75-year lease.
“We started working on the project with Neal Roberts, but since that time, due to the considerable opposition, mainly from Union Oil of California (owner of properties to the west), we gave the property back to Caltrans in terms of concept and proposal in February of 1987 and terminated our pursuit to allow Caltrans to prepare a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the project,” MacLeod stated.
