Pasadena Studies Ways to Revive Civic Center

Squinting in the sun and focusing little disposable cameras on compromised vistas and blocked thoroughfares, a Pasadena task force Saturday began to search for new ways to revitalize the city’s Civic Center.

About 30 business, civic and community leaders took to the streets around City Hall in an effort to determine what has kept the area, so near bustling Old Pasadena, from thriving.

Many believe the solution may be to restructure the Plaza Pasadena shopping center. When it was built almost two decades ago, the mall sectioned off the imposing Civic Auditorium from the main library and City Hall, all elegant California Mediterranean structures erected as part of a visionary downtown plan drawn up in 1922.

Critics of the mall say it has deadened pedestrian life. With parking underground and most of the shops accessible only from the interior, the surrounding area has few people on the streets during evenings and weekends.

The task force is looking at how best to attract people to walk, shop and be entertained at all hours in a cohesive pedestrian community that would stretch from Old Pasadena to the playhouse district, anchored by the historic Pasadena Playhouse on South El Molino Avenue.

“We want to reorient the retail on the street,” said Pasadena Mayor Chris Holden.

The group, whose first meeting was Saturday, will also look into how to build more homes and condominiums and add landscaping, street lights and theaters. Members will discuss opening up the mall to create “visual corridors” to City Hall and the San Gabriel Mountains. Also, Holden said, “We’re going to look to create pedestrian traffic on the Green Street side.”

One architect only half-facetiously suggested “letting a trash truck run right through [the mall] and open it up.”

Holden said that with the strong economy, “property owners are willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars” in the area at a time when the City Council is looking to improve the Civic Center. So the task force was created; it will present its findings to the council in January, after a series of meetings that will include public comment sessions.

Robert Sahm, senior vice president of MS Property Co. and a task force member, said that his corporation’s downtown lots have been stagnant for years but that now he’s ready to build.

“We’re going to make something nice that enhances our block,” said Sahm. “Old Town has worked well, and I think the rest of Pasadena can work as well.”

Downtown hasn’t always been so quiet. During the 1920s, the area was a posh place to shop. Colorado Boulevard was packed with exclusive boutiques and jewelry stores. And the auditorium housed, as it does today, what was then Southern California’s premier orchestra, the Pasadena Symphony, said historian Ann Scheid.

“Pasadena was the cultural center of the region,” she said. But in the ‘40s, South Lake Avenue became the rage, and downtown Pasadena fell to the wayside.

Scheid was cautious in her support of a major downtown overhaul, however. “I think one of the lessons learned [from history] is that latching on to the latest trend is not profitable in the long term,” she said, adding that everywhere can’t be popular at once.

But Holden said the proposed changes would have popular benefits beyond a hoped-for economic boost. Proposed walking paths, open space and an art center or children’s museum would all benefit the community, he said.

Walkways would create a needed flow throughout downtown, task force members said.

Holden said that the Civic Center’s historic buildings are cherished within the community and that he wants any new construction to match their architectural style. “I don’t think we want to drift far away from that,” he said.

Holden estimated that the revitalization could cost from $200 million to $400 million but said much of that would come from the property owners.

The mayor said he is optimistic about his constituents accepting the value of the project.

“In Europe they have great piazzas and fountains,” said Holden. “We’ve got to recognize that those are the things that make the heart of the downtown come alive.”