ICONS

If you’ve been putting off visiting the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu because you don’t like having to make parking reservations a week in advance, don’t bother waiting until the 1996 opening of the new, improved Brentwood Getty. The $360-million construction budget doesn’t guarantee enough parking.

“When we open,” says Stephen Rountree, director of the building program, “we’ll have a reservation system like the one in Malibu.”

Space is not the problem; the neighbors are. Though most of the museum traffic will never see a local side street--the Getty’s parking lot will be only a few yards from the museum’s own freeway exit--those living in the rich and powerful neighborhoods around the site persuaded the city to limit the Getty to 900 visitor parking places. While that’s certainly an improvement over the current 220, it isn’t as much as the museum wants or needs.

“There will be times of the year when people will have to call ahead,” says one Getty trustee. “But on average weekdays, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Average weekdays, of course, aren’t when most people visit museums; half of a museum’s visitors arrive on weekends. With 1.3 million first-year visitors predicted, cloudy Sunday afternoons at the Getty may look like Christmas Eve at the Beverly Center, with 2,500 cars vying during the day for 900 parking places.

The parking news from Brentwood isn’t all bad. The spectacular view will almost certainly attract some who, in the words of one museum official, “don’t normally think of museums as places to go.” So the new Getty will feature RV parking, too: 16 out of the 900.

“It will be up on one level,” says Rountree, “separate from the other parking.”

Well, thank goodness for that.