Avalon’s Cure for Its Growing Pains : 15-Year Redevelopment Plan Would Change Much of Town That’s Bursting at the Seams

By boat, the view approaching Avalon presents a trio of vivid images, each rising from the morning mists like a post card come to life.

First, the Hamilton Cove condominiums, tier upon tier of gleaming white buildings hewn into a hillside of the rugged Santa Catalina Island terrain.

Then, the landmark Casino Ballroom, a round, domed Art Deco structure, perched on a showy vantage point of land jutting into the blue Pacific.

Finally, rounding the curve into Avalon Bay, the town itself, exuding Old World charm and a Mediterranean-like ambience. Picturesque houses with red-tiled roofs line the steep, winding streets, overlooking a white sand beach and the boat-filled harbor.

Even ashore, Avalon lives up to its idyllic image.

It is a town where many residents are on a first-name basis, where townspeople pick up their mail at the post office because there are too few residents to justify the expense of home mail delivery, and where locals often can recite their post office box numbers more readily than their street addresses.

Crescent Avenue, a pedestrian mall of souvenir shops and restaurants with quaint names like Buoys and Gulls and the Busy Bee, retains a small-town flavor, though year-round residents tend to avoid it in summer months because of the throngs of tourists.

But even in picture-perfect Avalon, there are problems.

Room for Improvements

In surveys conducted over the last year by the Santa Catalina Island Co., residents and visitors alike identified a number of ways that life in Avalon could be improved.

Basically, the city of about 2,500 is bursting at the seams.

Avalon suffers from a shortage of housing for permanent residents, and would-be workers in the year-round tourist industry often have trouble finding a place to live.

Traffic congestion and a shortage of parking space are critical issues. Even though many residents tool around the hilly streets in space-saving golf carts, and the city strictly limits the numbers of cars and other vehicles, summer traffic often collects in a bottleneck at downtown intersections.

For residents, tourism is both an economic boon and a hindrance to day-to-day life. As many as 15,000 tourists from “overtown,” as the mainland is called, flood the 1.25-square-mile town daily, providing lucrative profits for Avalon merchants but straining the town’s already taxed freshwater resources, streets and sewer system.

Tourist Headaches

Twice weekly, the tourist tide swells when cruise ships are moored offshore and hundreds of vacationers are ferried to the Pleasure Pier for a few hurried hours of sightseeing.

Longtime Avalon resident John W. R. Windle, who arrived on the island as a 6-year-old in 1910, reveres Avalon’s small-town charms but says the city’s growth and its increasing popularity as a year-round tourist attraction cause headaches for permanent residents.

“Some things need fixing, there’s no doubt about it,” said Windle, 85. “And it’s getting more commercial, it really is. Sometimes I get to feel like a stranger in my own town.”

To ease the problems, officials at the Santa Catalina Island Co., which owns much of the land in Avalon, have unveiled a sweeping, 15-year plan aimed at redeveloping much of the town in three-year phases.

The plan--still at a conceptual stage--is intended to address some of the most pressing issues facing Avalon, including lack of year-round housing and a water supply so limited that salt water is used to flush toilets and to douse fires.

The plan proposes new moderate-cost apartments and homes for year-round residents; a new transportation center to consolidate ticket-buying and other travel functions now spread out over the town; a desalination plant; three new hotels with a total of about 200 new rooms, and a general sprucing up of Avalon’s streets and parks.

Island officials are uncertain how much it will cost to implement the plan and how any future development costs will be divided among the Island Co., the city and private developers. A desalination plant alone will cost $3 million, officials estimate.

Many residents, although acknowledging that the changes are overdue, say they want to preserve Avalon’s small-town quality.

Bought in 1919

Therein, Island Co. officials say, lies a major dilemma: how to upgrade Avalon without altering its charm.

“Avalon’s now 75 years old, and a lot of the things that were convenient and appropriate 75 years ago are no longer convenient and appropriate,” said Island Co. Vice President Ron Doutt. “They are, as a matter of fact, contributing to these problems.”

Santa Catalina Island was purchased in 1919 by the family of chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. through the Island Co. The company now owns about two-thirds of the land in Avalon and about 20% of the city’s buildings. In 1975, the company deeded about 86% of the island to the nonprofit Catalina Conservancy, which maintains the pristine interior.

Some of Avalon’s buildings date from the early part of the century. City Hall, for example, a wood frame, stucco-covered structure built into a steep hillside, was constructed around 1917.

The cramped council chambers, with green, plastic-covered benches, hold a maximum of 36 people. If a large turnout is expected at a council meeting, the location is switched to the school auditorium.

Elsewhere at City Hall, office space is so limited that some city workers share desks in the council chambers.

Facilities in 3 Buildings

City Manager Chuck Prince said the city “has facilities strung out over three buildings.” Offices for the city clerk and the city manager, for example, are about a block apart.

“If any of those locations were sufficient, that would be great,” Prince said. “But they’re not. They’re old, accessibility’s difficult, and there’s no meeting space. If more than three people want to get together, generally they have to borrow space from a local bank.”

Space is at an even greater premium at the Avalon fire station, just across from City Hall on Metropole Avenue.

“Oh, it’s unbelievable,” said Fire Chief Jack Goslin. “We don’t even have a ramp to pull out the trucks and work on them.” During daily maintenance checks, the trucks must be pulled out onto Metropole, partially blocking the thoroughfare, he said.

Other problems at the station include a leaky roof and living quarters crammed into a converted garage under City Hall--a space about 12 by 22 feet, shared by two on-duty firefighters. When an alarm sounds, firefighters must dash across the street to get to the fire trucks, Goslin said.

Fumes in Sleeping Quarters

“Right next door to (the living quarters) is where the ambulance is,” Goslin said. “When you start that up, all the fumes come in to where they sleep.”

A new fire station--proposed for a site on Avalon Canyon Road near the school and Avalon Municipal Hospital--could provide training and classroom space for the department’s 25 volunteer firefighters, Goslin said. Also, the proposed site is more level than the present one, allowing easier access to Avalon’s main streets, he said.

“I would love to see it done,” Goslin said.

A few residents have expressed dismay that the plans will take 15 years to complete. “It’s not fast enough,” one resident wrote on an Island Co. survey.

But Mayor Hugh T. (Bud) Smith called the plan “workable and doable” and said he supports the Island Co.’s plan to proceed “a step at a time.”

Island Co. officials say developing the project over 15 years will minimize disruption to Avalon’s tourists and residents.

Massive Plans

Another reason for developing over a long term, officials said, is because the plans are so massive. The plans call for:

Construction of 50 units of housing a year over 15 years. The additional housing is planned for three locations: Las Casitas, the site of a former bungalow-style hotel where the Chicago Cubs held spring training until 1951, now used for housing of Island Co. employees; Bird Park Canyon, the site of a former aviary, once the home of a private collection of exotic birds, and Quail Canyon, on the outskirts of Avalon.

Construction of a civic center, including a new City Hall, fire station and day-care facilities for children, to be built on part of the seven-acre Las Casitas site.

While the new housing is being built, a desalination plant will be under construction near the Southern California Edison power plant on Pebbly Beach Road to provide a source of fresh water for new homes and apartments.

Three new hotels, including a high-quality hotel and public-access beach at Descanso Bay, a 16-acre site between the Casino Ballroom and the Hamilton Cove condominium development. A second hotel would be built near a city park at the west end of Crescent Avenue, the town’s main street. Also, the Atwater Hotel would be razed and a new hotel built on the site.

A plan that would make land owned by the Island Co. available for lease and eventual purchase by permanent residents to build single-family homes. Island officials said the plan is new and that they are still unsure how it will work.

A central commercial area for residents, to include a new 15,000-square-foot grocery store and a new post office, providing a location for residents to shop and check their mail away from the onslaught of visitors on tourist-crammed Crescent Avenue. Nearby would be a “transportation hub,” where tourists would validate cross-channel transportation tickets, check in baggage and purchase tickets for tours into the interior. Such arrangements are now done at various locations, including Cabrillo Mole on Pebbly Beach Road and the Island Plaza on Sumner Avenue.

Reducing traffic by relocating many service-oriented businesses away from tourist areas.

General sprucing up of the city’s parks, possibly adding landscaping along Sumner and Metropole avenues, based on the same architectural theme as the pedestrian mall on Crescent Avenue.

$8-Million Annual Budget

Island Co. officials said it is difficult to estimate how much the new developments could bring the city in revenue from hotel and business taxes, but one official ventured a rough estimate of $1.7 million annually, when all the projects are completed. Avalon’s current annual budget is about $8 million.

Some aspects of the plan have been in the works for at least 20 years, said lifelong Avalon resident Malcolm Renton, a retired vice president of the Island Co. For example, building a grand hotel at Descanso Beach has been the company’s goal since the St. Catherine Hotel, an elegant structure where Hollywood stars including Clark Gable, Mary Pickford and Cecil B. De Mille once stayed, was razed in 1966.

“The plan was always to keep that a choice hotel location,” said Renton, 81, whose father also worked for the Island Co.

In June, the Island Co. presented conceptual plans to residents at a town meeting, and reaction was mostly favorable.

41% Approved Unconditionally

Of 67 residents who responded to an Island Co. survey after the presentation, 25 residents, or about 41%, unconditionally approved the overall concept. Only two residents didn’t like the plan. More meetings are planned over the coming year.

In interviews, residents seem confident that the plan will succeed.

“It’s a beautiful setup,” said Lolo Saldana, owner of Lolo’s Plaza Barber Shop on Sumner Avenue.

“I’m absolutely impressed with it,” said Lita Mulvihill, an Avalon resident for 17 years, who said the plan “is renovating and restoring and bringing things back to life that used to be, like the old St. Catherine.”

Wayne Griffin, executive director of the Catalina Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber is unlikely to take a formal position on the Island Co. plans. But Griffin said he approves of the plans and the Island Co.’s solicitation of response from the town.

“I thought it was great,” Griffin said. “They’re being very up front about what they’re doing and asking people what they think. It’s refreshing.”

‘Due for an Uplift’

Patricia Moore, director and curator of the Catalina Island Museum, said the timing couldn’t be better. “I think our town needs to take a good hard look at ourselves because we’re outgrowing ourselves,” she said. “I think we’re due for an uplift.”

Bringing off the development plan hinges largely on one crucial element: water.

“Obviously, we can’t build any of these projects without water,” said island spokesman Doutt. “We’ve reached our maximum at this time.”

Currently, Southern California Edison supplies Catalina consumers with about 300,000 gallons of fresh water daily during the winter and more than a million gallons during the summer, officials said. The island’s main freshwater source is Middle Ranch Reservoir in the interior, which collects rainwater.

The reservoir, which has an 1,143 acre-foot capacity, is currently at about 635 acre-feet, said Keith LeFever, Edison district manager for Catalina. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons.

When the water supply drops to 600 acre-feet--which could happen in mid-September, according to LeFever--water restrictions will be imposed, including restricting the use of water for washing streets, cars and boats and watering lawns.

Flash Distillation

To get enough water to carry out their development plans, island officials hope to use a desalination method known as flash distillation, which involves condensing seawater to remove the salt, company spokesman Doutt said.

A feasibility study of a desalination plant, commissioned by the Island Co., is about 90% completed, LeFever said.

“What we’re doing right now is reviewing the different desalination alternatives to determine what will be the most cost-effective for them to pursue,” LeFever said.

Another desalination plant, using reverse osmosis technology to filter impurities from the water, is scheduled for construction at Hamilton Cove within the next year, LeFever said.

For some residents, a more immediate problem is housing--or the lack of it.

Avalon officials have attempted to alleviate the problem with such measures as a 1981 city ordinance requiring new hotel developers to provide housing for 50% of the people they employ during the peak summer season, and residential developers to make 20% of their units available for low- and moderate-income housing.

Major Obstacle

Still, finding an apartment remains a major obstacle for would-be islanders.

“Essentially, the (rental) vacancy rate is zero,” City Manager Prince said.

“Every year the situation gets worse,” said five-year resident Ann Marshall. Residents who find a job in Avalon but can’t find a place to live soon discover, Marshall said, that “you don’t always get a warm welcome when you come to Catalina.”

The housing shortage is so severe, said Marshall, that “some people read the obits to see who died, just to see what apartment is coming up.”

Recalling her own difficulties finding housing when she moved to Avalon, Marshall who is the city’s director of community services, said she “bends over backward” to help new city employees in search of housing, sometimes letting them stay at her two-bedroom apartment for a few days, sleeping on the sofa or camping out on the floor.

Mulvihill, who owns a women’s clothing store, said many business owners--herself included--work short-handed during the busy summer season because potential employees can’t find housing.

“All of us have just suffered,” Mulvihill said. “We don’t have a choice of employees. We don’t have young people coming (to work) in the summer like we used to, the college kids. There’s no place for them to live.”

Daily Visits to Post Office

The Post Office Arcade is another point of concern for some residents. Because mail is not delivered to homes, a daily visit to the Post Office Arcade is a necessity--and often a pleasure--of life in Avalon.

A few residents want it to stay where it is.

“At the moment, I don’t think there’s a necessity for moving it and a lot of people don’t that I talk to,” said longtime resident Windle.

But others, including postmaster Lydia Saldana, are ready for a bigger, better postal facility. The present building dates from the 1920s.

“Definitely we need a new post office,” Saldana said. “This one’s a little old, and with the planned growth we’ll need a few more boxes.” About 1,800 of the facility’s 2,000 boxes are currently rented, she said.

Island Co. official Doutt said the old post office building--part of the Atwater Hotel complex--will be demolished in the last phase of the plan, but that the company hopes to recapture some of its flavor in the architectural design of the new postal facility and commercial complex.

‘Small-Town Feel’

“We want to preserve the feel of the arcade,” Doutt said. “You go in there and you buy your PTA raffle tickets and you buy your Girl Scout cookies and you socialize and get your mail and get caught up on how families are. It’s really a neat small-town feel.”

The new post office arcade will be located near the new grocery store and other service-oriented businesses, officials said.

Some residents questioned how much the plan will cost and who will pay for what.

“Can the city afford it?” one anonymous resident asked on the survey.

“I have no idea what all of this would cost,” said island spokesman Doutt. “We’re not even close to breaking ground on any of this.”

City Manager Prince said a new City Hall “is going to require substantial (financial) commitment from the city. Today, we don’t have the financial resources. . . . Three to five years down the road, we may.”

One option, Prince said, is seeking voter approval for a general obligation bond to finance a new City Hall. The City Hall site--which is owned by the city--itself presents another option: The building sits on valuable commercial property that could be sold to help finance the cost of a new building on a less expensive site.

Historical Value Cited

How the City Hall building will be used after a new one is constructed remains undecided, Mayor Smith said. Many residents may want to keep the building intact because “there’s a lot of historical value associated with the present City Hall,” he said.

City officials have held preliminary discussions with the Island Co. and hope to have worked out a development agreement by the fall of 1990, Prince said.

“It would be a long, far-reaching document,” Prince said, “but probably the best way to deal with this would be in a long development agreement that undoubtedly . . . would be amended many times” over time.

The city’s role in that process would remain unchanged whether the individual projects are done by the Island Co. or independent developers, Prince said.

“The process is the same with respect to evaluation of the project and making sure it conforms to Coastal Commission requirements and (city) planning ordinances,” Prince said.

Island Co. President Paxson (Packy) Offield said the plan “is going to have to be reviewed in an environmental impact study, (and) impacts to the infrastructure will have to be addressed.”

Development in Phases

Once a development agreement is reached, island officials envision a phased plan that, during the first three years, would see construction begin on employee housing and the desalination plant, land would be made available for lease purchase, and construction of the hotel at Descanso Beach would begin.

The construction of a new City Hall, fire department, more employee housing and more hotels would begin in later phases.

In light of the island company’s ambitious plans, optimism for Avalon’s future is running high among townspeople.

“I’m delighted that they’re looking at their property from the point of view of how we all can benefit,” said museum curator Patricia Moore. “It will certainly change the town, but generally speaking, I think it will change it for the better.”

In the meantime, islanders say, the pleasures of life in Avalon more than make up for any shortcomings.

“I can’t think of a better place to live and work, and, if you’re going to have problems, to have them,” said Mulvihill. “I’m sure there are very few places like Avalon. Our world is wonderful over here.”