Fight Over Long Beach Base Brews

At the heart of the soon-to-be-shuttered Long Beach Naval Station is a ficus-studded lane that leads from a breezy waterfront vista to a sparkling 25-meter pool and a professional-quality basketball court. Around the corner sit four fully lighted softball fields with fresh chalk on the baselines.

And down the road, on the other side of a chain-link fence, a bulldozer waits to devour it all.

After the Navy announced in 1991 that it planned to close the 170-acre base, laying off about 17,500 military and civilian personnel, city officials thought that deciding what to do with the abandoned Navy land was a no-brainer.

Seeking to mend Long Beach’s battered economy, the City Council agreed to turn over the base property to the city’s port, which wants to pave it over and turn it into a cargo container yard.

Now, a group of historic preservationists has joined in a unique partnership with park users and sports enthusiasts to save not just a smattering of historic buildings--some designed by the late Paul R. Williams--but also the newer buildings and state-of-the-art recreational facilities that they say the community desperately needs and could never afford to replicate.

“It’s a terrible waste,” said John Hill, an Army veteran who took a few last laps in the pool the other day. “Just to use it as a parking lot seems tragic.”

In a last-minute bid to spare the base, activists argue that the modern facilities and historic buildings could offer a wide array of activities, from maritime training to recreation for wayward children.

Although still hidden from passersby on the western edge of the Port of Long Beach across the Gerald Desmond bridge from downtown, the former Navy support station offers a 32-lane bowling alley, an outdoor performance stage, corporate-style conference rooms and office space and an officers club, plus acres of grassy spaces on the waterfront.

While the 1,500 sailors who remain there have all but packed their bags, a loose-knit collection of civilians has banded together in recent weeks to halt the demolition. The effort began when historians from the preservationist organization Long Beach Heritage discovered that several base buildings were eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. They were quickly joined by Save the Park by Sharing Information, a group seeking to protect city parks from development.

At this point, the opposition groups have no formal proposal of what to do with the facilities. They simply want to delay any decision long enough to develop a plan.

And the clock is ticking. The last of the Navy’s personnel are scheduled to leave at the end of this month. On Tuesday, the port commission approved its environmental impact study. The Pentagon is conducting an additional environmental analysis and is expected to rule soon on the city’s plan. Bulldozers could begin leveling the base in October.

But the timetable could be delayed. California Earth Corps, an environmental organization, has filed a claim against the Navy--and may seek a court injunction to delay demolition--for what it claims is a failure to properly assess possible contamination of the property from toxic chemicals.

Despite the potential dangers, parks proponents say recreation has a place at the base.

Huell Howser, the Charles Kuralt-esque host of the public broadcasting television show “California’s Gold,” has turned his usually cordial program into something of a bully pulpit to save the land. “No one’s against world trade,” Howser said. “The question is, is this the only place you can pave to build a container yard?”

To hear city and port officials tell it, the answer is yes. Although the Navy hasn’t officially signed over the land, the port has inked a letter of intent to lease the property to China Ocean Shipping Co., a steamship line run by the Chinese government and one of the port’s fastest-growing tenants. The city’s base closure consultant said the terminal would create about 650 jobs, and indirectly as many as 60,000 more.

“If we couldn’t put them on the naval station, we’d be forced to do a massive dredging and filling on the harbor,” said Geraldine Knatz, the port’s environmental planner. “. . .We’ve looked at everything that can be done.”

The law governing use of the property dates to the early part of the century, before the land became a Navy installation. Once the Pentagon signs over the property, it has little say in its fate. In this case, federal officials say they will defer to California tidelands law, which states that the land must be put to commercial, navigational or fisheries-related use.

Of the land-use proposals presented to the city, the port’s was considered the best plan under those criteria, officials said.

But critics such as Mel Nutter, an attorney and former California Coastal Commission chairman, say the port’s analysis of the tidelands law is “an excuse” to rule out other land uses. Nutter insisted that the law is broad enough to include a range of recreational activities.

“I would suspect it’s going to take an awful lot to convince the federal government to come along and reject a plan submitted by elected officials,” said Bryant Monroe, the civilian project manager overseeing Long Beach’s base closures for the Pentagon’s Office of Economic Adjustment. “We’re not going to split the baby.”

The City Council first voted in 1993 to transfer title of the land to the port. After the Navy announced in 1995 that it would close the shipyard next door, city leaders affirmed their earlier decision. But council members said they were not aware of the 54-year-old base’s facilities when they voted.

“I never heard anything from any single person about that,” said Councilman Alan Lowenthal, whose district includes the property. But, he said, knowing more about the base’s facilities wouldn’t necessarily change his mind or his vote.

Two Navy studies submitted to the city before its vote on the property last September show that the base includes 11 administration buildings and other facilities designed by Williams, once the nation’s preeminent African American architect, who also created the spidery tower that is the signature of Los Angeles International Airport.

Besides the Williams-designed components of the station, commissioned as a “Roosevelt Base” when it was rushed to completion in the wake of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the Naval Station was the site of a flurry of new construction in the 1980s defense buildup. According to Navy records, the military spent $38 million to build the newest structures--a 10-story, 360-room barracks complete with sun decks, lounges and a Jacuzzi, a smaller barracks and a medical clinic--within the last eight years alone.

Demolition opponents say countless uses exist for the property.

In Long Beach, where the four-year-old Police Athletic League has drawn 2,200 children, officers who volunteer to teach martial arts and water sports view the Navy facilities as irreplaceable.

“It’s a resource you’re not going to get back once it’s gone,” said Sgt. Steve Fenoglio. “If it’s run right, it would have a big impact on the kids.”

Officials at the city parks department, which has seen its budget slashed by one-third in the last 10 years, have not sought the property. But they say this city of 440,000 people has worn out many of its existing parks and jammed its three public pools.

Pete Dangermond, a recreation consultant and a former state parks director, said Long Beach is “underserved” with public recreation facilities. Most urban areas aim to have about five acres of parkland for every 1,000 residents, he said. City documents show that Long Beach has about 3.1 acres per 1,000 residents.

The current parks “are not of the size to accommodate the demand that’s out there,” said Kelton Reese, the manager of community park programs. “I think it’s a very important component when you consider quality of life.”