Cosmetic Surgery : Residents Weigh In With Ideas for Venice Beach’s $10-Million Face Lift

Venice Beach, usually gawked at by outsiders, is giving itself the once-over these days with a $10-million question: How do I look?

The answer will guide the biggest renovation there since Abbot Kinney began creating a futuristic dreamland by the sea 88 years ago. County voters’ approval last fall of a massive bond issue--containing $10 million for a Venice Beach make-over--has awakened dormant schemes for one of Southern California’s biggest tourist attractions and revived some of its prickliest questions.

The first proposal out of the blocks, written by several community groups, would refurbish the boardwalk using brickwork and antique lighting to evoke Kinney’s turn-of-the-century era, while adding a modern-day paved beach path for the walkers and skaters who often clog the current bicycle path.

Promoted by the Venice Boardwalk Assn., Venice Action Committee and Venice Historical Society, the plan also calls for demolition of the decrepit Venice Pavilion, whose fate has divided the community for years, and restoration of the closed Venice Pier.

“The boardwalk is in shambles and it is a pressing need today,” said Mark Ryavec, executive director of the boardwalk association.

The beachside renovation would be the latest in a flurry of renovations in Venice, after a recent overhaul of the historic Venice Canals and reconstruction of Venice Boulevard.

Boardwalk merchants have grown increasingly vocal this year, pleading for more police to handle weekend crowds and curb gang activity that forced the boardwalk to close one afternoon in May. Some say the proposed improvements will help manage crowds that approach 200,000 on summer weekends.

Complaining that the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department ran roughshod over community wishes on previous boardwalk projects, the three Venice groups took the unusual step of hurriedly producing a detailed design in time for a public meeting this evening with officials overseeing the renovation.

The 7 p.m. meeting at the Penmar Recreation Center is the first step in the department’s effort to gauge community support for proposals to remedy problems spotlighted in a 1990 study by the California Coastal Conservancy.

The conservancy complained that the boardwalk and pagodas were decaying, said that overcrowding on the bike path caused accidents and noted that many in the community favored tearing down the concrete pavilion, which opened as a theater in 1961 but is now defunct. The report also recommended restoration of Venice Pier, which is already being planned.

“We want to reaffirm that these are still valid goals, that there aren’t new problems that are of more immediate need,” said Kathleen Chan, project manager for the parks department.

So far, the department has only very generalized concepts for spending the $10 million, according to Planning and Development Director Frank Catania.

A pier restoration, estimated to cost up to $3.5 million, appears firm and the department has picked a consultant to look into how much work is needed on the storm-weakened pier, which has been closed since 1986.

Officials are also fairly sure they will dip into the fund to remove a beachside oil-drilling facility left by a company that filed for bankruptcy in 1991. Cleanup of the facility could cost up to $2.5 million, $700,000 of which the city has on hand from performance bonds and direct payments from the company. The Venice groups, however, oppose using money from the parks initiative to clean up the one-acre site.

Chan said the department has no solid plans yet for the rest of the boardwalk area.

The three Venice groups do--right down to the red bricks they would like to see underfoot. Their $5-million master plan calls for reconstruction of the boardwalk, topped with the patterned brickwork and accented with old-fashioned street lamps and dangling lights modeled on the fixtures used in what Kinney originally called the “Venice of America.”

“It won’t feel like a city street. It should feel like a walk along the beach,” said architect Michael King, who volunteered to design the proposal with his wife, Diana Pollard.

The master plan calls for restoring five historic pagodas--the open, wooden-roofed sunshades that are popular spots for street entertainers--and using planters to block speeding skateboarders from using the pagoda benches for stunts.

To relieve crowding near the pagodas, the proposal sketches eight entertainment “pockets” and three or four larger “performers’ plazas.” The idea has won praise from those who live on nearby “walk streets” that are sealed off to vehicular traffic and which now absorb much of the weekend frenzy.

The proposal also calls for new picnic tables and single-stall bathrooms to replace restrooms that are often filthy and dens for drug use and prostitution. A new 10-foot-wide path would take skaters and pedestrians off the bike path.

“The aim is to evoke turn-of-the-century Venice, expanded to take care of current needs,” Ryavec said.

Another goal is to avoid a repeat of the hard feelings left from previous renovations, which boardwalk activists say excluded them. A reconstruction of the Muscle Beach area two years ago added bleachers that merchants say choke the flow of boardwalk foot traffic and add to tensions among visitors. Critics, including City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, say the recreation department lacks a coherent vision for the beach.

“We’re tired of the cheap solutions that Rec and Parks gives us,” Ryavec said. “Let’s do it right, over a period of years.”

But it might be impossible to avoid controversy over the pavilion, which some say is a dangerous eyesore and others describe as an unmined cultural jewel. “It’s probably the most touchy issue on the beach,” city official Catania said.

Previous ideas have included tearing down the idle theater, turning it into an aquarium, a roller-skating park--or simply more beach. “It’s the gateway to Venice and it’s the ugliest piece of junk I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Diane Bush of the Venice Action Committee.

A group called the Venice Arts Mecca wants to use the building for a community day-care center, theater, cafe and artists’ bazaar, a plan blending neighborhood activism with Venice’s artsy heritage.

“While the building itself is ugly, it can be transformed,” said Lynn Warshafsky, the group’s president. “It’s a really ideal space, if renovated and managed correctly.”