It Sure Beats Bread and Water : Old Jail in San Pedro Seen as Possible Site for Restaurant That Overlooks the Harbor

Interested in building apartments for senior citizens? Ever long to convert a musty old jail into a rooftop restaurant with a prime harbor view?

The City of Los Angeles may have just the deal for you.

City officials are considering leasing two parcels of choice real estate in downtown San Pedro: a city-owned parking lot at 7th and Beacon streets, for possible construction of a housing complex for seniors; and the former jail on the seventh floor of the San Pedro Municipal Building, which Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores has suggested would make a nice restaurant overlooking the harbor.

Before moving forward with the projects, however, city officials will hold a community meeting, tentatively scheduled for May 24, to see if citizens support the ideas. “No one will press any further if the community feels they do not want to,” Flores said.

Historical Value

One resident who has already expressed disapproval is Flora Baker, president of the San Pedro Bay Historical Society, who said the jail--with its iron bars, slab cots, wash basins, toilets, a padded cell and even graffiti still intact--is of historic significance.

The jail has not been in use since 1962, when the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division moved to new headquarters on John S. Gibson Boulevard. However, Baker said movie companies often film prison scenes there and that the jail has been the site of several community events and historical society tours.

“I think the people of San Pedro would heartily protest that their old jail would be used (as a restaurant),” Baker said. “I don’t know why the city needs money so badly that it would do something like that.”

Flores said both the jail and the parking lot proposal originated when people interested in pursuing such projects approached her with their ideas. She said the idea for a restaurant has been brought up “time and time again,” most recently by Anthony Nizetich, owner of Nizetich’s restaurant in San Pedro.

Nizetich said he wrote Flores last year and inquired about the jail but said he has become involved in other projects since and is no longer pursuing it. However, he said he might still be interested.

“It is a choice spot,” he said. “Where can you get on the (top) floor of any building in San Pedro and look at the ships come by?”

Flores said she would consider uses other than a restaurant for the site, although she ruled out office space because she does not want the city competing with private landlords, particularly in San Pedro, where office space may become plentiful once construction is completed on several new projects.

She said she thinks the jail is “a novel place for a restaurant.”

And though leasing city property for a restaurant is apparently a novel idea in Los Angeles, Flores’ other proposal is not new.

The so-called “air rights”--the right to build while the city retains ownership of the land--to two city parking lots on the Westside have been leased to developers, who have built federally subsidized housing for senior citizens.

Both projects are in the Pico-Robertson area in Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky’s district. Michelle Krotinger, a spokeswoman for Yaroslavsky, said the arrangement has eased a housing crunch for seniors on the Westside, where property costs are so high that creative solutions are necessary.

In one case, most of the lost parking spots were replaced with a garage built by the developer--a requirement Flores said she would insist on in San Pedro, where the lot currently is reserved for city employees.

One of the Westside developers, Thomas Safran, said he paid the city $106,000 at the start of construction and will make payments of $2,042 a month for 55 years for the use of the air rights to a parking lot at Pico Boulevard and Wooster Street.

Safran said his development eliminated only eight of the 37 parking spots at the lot, and said the money he is paying the city will go into a fund designated for parking improvements in the Pico-Robertson area.

Flores voted against that proposal when it was before the City Council but said she did so because she was concerned that the housing units were not open to seniors throughout the city. She said the developer ultimately satisfied her that any Los Angeles resident, not just those from the Westside, would be eligible to live in the complex.

Flores said a similar complex in downtown San Pedro might serve two purposes: It would alleviate the need for housing for seniors, and would bring more people downtown to help revive business in the area.

In addition, the City Council could agree to set aside revenue from the leases for improvements in the area, such as repairing the windows on the municipal building, which Flores said are “in there with some dried putty” and are in danger of falling out. The city has no money for the $600,000 job, she said.

“I have not normally been a person who suggests development, but as you know we’ve been having budget problems and whatever else,” the councilwoman said. “If we had a steady income from something in the community . . . we could reserve that money for community projects.”