Groups Seeking to Save Public Service Building : * Preservation: Council is asked to consider renovating the 63-year-old structure and leasing it as private offices.

Preservationists who want to save Glendale’s 63-year-old Public Service Building called Tuesday for studies on how much it will cost to save it rather than tear it down.

Representatives of several groups argued at a joint hearing before the City Council and the Environmental and Planning Board that the city will lose a historically and economically valuable asset if it demolishes the six-story building at 119 N. Glendale Ave. The groups represented were the Glendale Historical Society, the American Institute of Architects, Taxpayers to Save Glendale $Millions and various homeowner organizations.

Instead, the groups urged that the Art Deco/Moderne-style building be renovated and leased as private offices so that it can be used in the future for an expanded city work force. The council referred the matter back to the planning board. Further hearings, as yet unscheduled, are planned.

Controversy over planned demolition of the 36,856-square-foot building began about a year ago after the City Council approved construction of a $24-million replacement, to be called the Perkins Building, which would be twice as big. The old building was to be demolished after completion of the new one late this year. An expanded civic center plaza is planned on the site of the old building.

The two structures are less than 20 feet apart, which violates city fire codes and is ugly, city officials said. Modifications to the Perkins building now would be costly, they said. Preservationists asked that the city reconsider options such as joining the two buildings.

Several dozen admirers of the old building waited for hours Tuesday for their chance to rally behind preserving the structure, designed by Alfred F. Priest, a prominent local architect who designed more than 40 residential, commercial, institutional and governmental buildings in the city in the 1920s, according to historical reports.

Also at the public hearing was C. E. (Gene) Perkins, 87, who retired in 1972 after 20 years as city manager and for whom the new building is named. “The controversy is unfortunate,” he said later.

The replacement building is named in Perkins’ honor for establishing Glendale’s conservative “pay-as-you-go” rules. Although he likes the old public service building, Perkins said, “I don’t think it should stay.”