Building Begins at Site of 16 Quake Deaths

The nation last saw the area as a heap of wreckage, glass shards and splintered beams, during a time of great devastation.

It was a scene of bloodstains and tears and desperate searches. And for years since, the ground has been barren. There are few reminders of the community that once lived there and the 16 lives that were lost there in the Northridge earthquake.

At the site where once stood the Northridge Meadows Apartments complex, which became a symbol of the Jan. 17, 1994, earthquake and its destruction, work on the Parc Ridge apartment structure began Monday.

Its builders say it too will be a symbol--of recovery--as well as a memorial.

Along its extended driveway will stand 16 trees in memory of the 16 who died, and in its courtyard a lone weeping willow will stand.

But “when people drive by, it will tell them that the Valley has recovered,” said Robert Kleiman, co-owner of Structure Development Group, the project’s contractor. “Parc Ridge will be radically different than Northridge Meadows. Everyone involved wanted to design and create something that symbolized a newer, stronger Valley.”

“Everything that went into building this complex was state-of-the-art,” said Francine Oschin, an assistant to Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the area.

The building’s designer, John Reed of Santa Monica-based REA Architects, said the design and materials used in Parc Ridge “will make an architectural statement about the earthquake.”

Reed and Kleiman pointed to tougher building codes adopted after the earthquake.

“The new codes require significantly improved structural components, like additional hold-down bolts to the foundation,” Kleiman said.

Northridge Meadows, a three-story, wood-frame building, collapsed in the quake, crushing the first floor and killing more people than died in any other location.

The new 158-unit Parc Ridge won’t be one building but a group of about 12 three-story buildings, focused on a central courtyard. It will have a single underground-parking structure supported by heavy concrete columns.

“We wanted to prevent something like the Northridge Meadows from happening,” Reed said. “This is a much more expensive but safer project.”

It has taken more than three years for the city and federal governments to “erase the scar” because of legal entanglements and funding problems, Oschin said.

She said it’s only now that cooperation between the builder--the Northridge Redevelopment Group--and the government organizations that provided funding, including the Los Angeles Housing Department and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, made the project possible.

“There is still a lot of rebuilding left to do,” Oschin said. “But this project sends a clear message to the people of the Valley that the rebuilding project has worked and that they haven’t been forgotten.”

Northridge Redevelopment Group bought the property in July 1995 out of bankruptcy, according to Kleiman.

A formal ceremony is scheduled for July 17. Completion is expected next June.