Underground Parking for 600 Planned Near Tar Pits

Methane or no methane, fossils or no fossils, workers have begun readying the site of an $8-million, four-story parking structure beneath the park that surrounds the La Brea tar pits.

They have daubed red blobs of paint to mark several dozen trees that are to be taken out to make way for the excavation, but county officials said Hancock Park will be restored once construction is complete sometime next year.

Landscaped to look like a big bump in the grass behind the George C. Page Museum, the parking bunker will have room for 600 cars and 30,000 square feet of office and storage space.

Plans call for the top story on the north side to be open for fresh air and sunlight.

The garage will provide parking for employees and visitors to the nearby Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as to the Page Museum, which displays prehistoric fossils found in the tar pits.

Shortage of Parking

For years, both museums have been suffering from a shortage of parking, which was worsened by the institution of permit parking on nearby streets last year. On a busy weekend, the museums can attract as many as 15,000 visitors a day.

The Page Museum parking lot holds about 180 cars, while the art museum’s lot on the south side of Wilshire Boulevard has room for 300.

Named after a pioneer landowner, the 25-acre Allen Hancock Park is famous for its fossilized deposits of saber-toothed tiger bones and other prehistoric remains, many of which remain unexcavated.

Provisions have been made for scientific teams to oversee the removal of any fossils that are found, said Bill Wise, chief analyst for Los Angeles County’s chief administrative office.

The park, located between Wilshire Boulevard and 6th Street just east of Fairfax Avenue, is in an area riddled with methane deposits. The nearby intersection of Fairfax Avenue and 3rd Street was closed for two days last week when methane-monitoring devices detected a high buildup of the volatile vapor.

But Wise said soil tests and other precautions will be taken to guard against danger from underground pockets of methane gas.

“It depends what you find,” Wise said. “There will be special foundation systems, monitoring devices, vents, whatever you need.”

Wise said the construction contract for the parking structure allows for it to be erected on the surface if the underground plan proves unfeasible.

Change in Plans

Originally designed to be built above ground, the proposed structure was moved below the surface at the instigation of nearby residents, Supervisor Ed Edelman and museum benefactor George C. Page.

“To build a concrete warehouse for automobiles without the deepest consideration of our heritage and the pride we have for our park would be ludicrous,” said Franklin W. Thornton, the architect picked by Page to design the parking structure. It will be “unobtrusive and non-architectural,” he said.

It was Page, founder of the Mission Pak holiday gift box business, who launched the museum with a $3-million gift. It opened in 1977.

Page paid for $50,000 worth of new architectural renderings that helped persuade the Board of Supervisors to go along with the more expensive and technically challenging underground version of the parking structure, said Mark Rodriguez, chief deputy director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. The Page Museum is a branch of the county museum.

The garage will be financed by bonds that are to be paid off by parking fees. Excess revenues generated by the fees are expected to begin flowing into the county’s general fund within four years.

“The biggest thing we’ve got going here is that the community is going to get a facility that’s going to pay for itself and meet the needs of that area,” Rodriguez said.

Until now, he said, “the use of the park was limited to those who could walk to it or those who are fortunate enough to find parking.”

Ronald Bratton, deputy director of the art museum, said the need for parking was increased by the possibility of a new commercial development at the corner of Fairfax Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard.

“Obviously, the museum is going to be here for a while, and we could see that parking for patrons is a critical need,” he said.

He also welcomed the enhanced lighting and security precautions that will be part of the project.

Lynn Cohen of the Miracle Mile Residential Assn. said the decision to put the garage underground was welcome.

“Our main interest would be to keep that open space available so that there’s a lot of recreational space and it feels open, and it appears that this will do it,” she said.

Cohen is chairwoman of the board of the residential association and president of the Miracle Mile Civic Coalition, which includes corporate executives and museum officials.

She said the two groups also hope to plant new trees on the city-owned sidewalk strips that surround the county park and to install new landscaping on the median strip of Wilshire Boulevard in front of the museums.

“This is our ‘Central Park,’ and we’ve got to take care of it,” she said.