Developers’ Zone Credit

I was overwhelmed with calls regarding the Calendar article “New Ups and Downs for Santa Monica” (May 23) and was compelled to respond with this letter of clarification.

Several important facts were overstated and significant credits were overlooked in the article written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda. For the record, in July of 1992, the Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corp. (PRC) under the guidance of then executive director John Gilchrest, issued a Request for Proposal to interested developer parties. Qualified developer and architectural teams were invited to submit design and development proposals to acquire the rights to lease and operate the Santa Monica Pier Fun Zone, a new amusement area on the historic pier. In September of 1992, the developers, Mr. Rick Olshansky and Mr. Jonathan Bloch of Santa Monica Amusements Inc., and their architects Ken Stein Architects, Venice, and George Elian, were voted unanimous winners after presenting their design to the PRC. The concept for the octopus was an important feature in the original winning design, as it announced the entrance to the park suspended from the roller coaster track above.

We continued working with SMA and were commissioned in early 1994 along with Nadel Architects to provide design and construction documents for the entire project. Contrary to the inference in the article, responsibility for the “look” of the project should be given to those mentioned above, who labored many hours over a four-year period to see the project and vision come to life.

KEN STEIN, AIA

Architect

Venice