W. Hollywood Plans 5-Level, 314-Car Garage in Park

Amid efforts to prevent a long-awaited civic center from being built in West Hollywood Park, city officials have announced plans to build a $2.7-million, five-level parking garage in the park.

City Manager Paul Brotzman said construction of the garage, designed to provide room for up to 314 vehicles, is expected to begin next January and take 10 months to complete.

He said the structure represents both a first step in the construction of the civic center and an effort by city officials to make good on a promise to West Hollywood’s business community to provide much-needed additional public parking.

Civic Center Foes Angry

However, opponents of the civic center angrily labeled the development as a tactic aimed at speeding up the project in the face of what they claim is growing public opposition to it.

“It’s an arrogant attempt to rush the civic center into the ground, and it won’t work,” said Councilman Steve Schulte, alone among the five council members in opposing the center. “I just want to see the reaction when people finally realize that they’re talking about putting up a four-story parking garage in that park.”

And Councilman Paul Koretz, who takes somewhat of a middle ground on the issue, also expressed displeasure that the city should consider going ahead with construction until it is clear what the impact, if any, will be from a ballot initiative aimed at preventing the center from being built in the park.

“I think it’s premature to be moving ahead with the civic center in the park in any aspect until it’s clear what’s going to happen with the ballot initiative,” Koretz said.

A group called the Save Our Parks Alliance has collected enough signatures to place the initiative on the April, 1990, ballot, but city officials have hinted they may challenge the legality of the initiative and have already asked City Atty. Michael Jenkins to research the matter.

Jenkins is expected to make a recommendation next month, when the council will decide whether to place the initiative on the ballot.

Mayor Abbe Land and council members John Heilman and Helen Albert are firmly committed to placing the center in the park. While saying he has not yet made up his mind, Koretz has expressed concern that the council “not put itself in the position to be the target of a public backlash” should it push ahead with the project and voters later decide they don’t want it.

Site a Softball Field

“The one thing we can’t afford to do is sink $4 million or $5 million in the park, and then have to tear it up and not be able to afford to build a civic center somewhere else,” Koretz said.

Plans call for building the garage on the north side of the park on what is now a softball field. One of the five parking levels will be underground. The garage will extend “35 to 40 feet” above ground, which project manager John Given said is “slightly less” than the usual height of a four-story building.

Brotzman acknowledged that “in all fairness it (the garage) does move the civic center along, but on the other side, if there weren’t opposition to the civic center, we’d be doing the same thing we’re doing now (in building the structure).”

Meanwhile, Land called construction of the garage “the logical thing to do.”

“One of our major goals has been to provide (public) parking. And while we’re going to continue to look at other sites, this one is ready to go as far as planning is concerned, so we’re going to start with this,” she said.

However, Tom Larkin, chairman of the Save Our Parks Alliance, called the plan “a transparent attempt to curry support for the civic center from the business community” and predicted it would “backfire” in the face of what he called “the building momentum” against the center.

No Firm Plan

“I don’t have a firm plan yet, but we will proceed with legal action to stop them from building any part of it (the center), including the parking garage,” he said.

He and Schulte were leading opponents of an $8-million bond issue--rejected by voters three weeks ago--to build a new fire station and library in West Hollywood. They portrayed the election as a referendum on the civic center, claiming the measure was a backhanded attempt to squeeze more money for the center, since both the fire station and library were originally part of the center’s design.

Brotzman said that the decision to go forward with the parking garage grew out of a goal-setting session of the City Council in late February in which “the council recognized that parking was the No. 1 issue . . . and directed that we (the adminstrative staff) immediately look for ways to improve it.”

About $1.5 million has been budgeted for civic center planning for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. In addition to the architects, a project engineer has been on the job for several months, and preliminary design work and site surveying continues.

City officials have said that to delay moving ahead with the project would result in spiraling construction costs at a time when the city is already paying $650,000 a year to rent City Hall space.

Schulte and others have accused civic center proponents of rushing to spend as much money as possible on the center so that by the time voters get a chance to have a say, the civic center will have become a fait accompli.

‘White Elephant’

Opponents claim that should the civic center not be built, the parking garage would become a “white elephant.”

However, Given, the project manager, said that the structure would be well used, even if the civic center were not built. The park, in the 600 block of San Vicente Boulevard, between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue, is located near a heavily congested commercial area.

“From everything the parking studies indicate, this is one of the areas with the greatest need for parking,” Given said. “We expect there will be considerable benefit in terms of parking for employees in the area and in drawing some of the nightclub patronage off of the surrounding neighborhood streets.”