City of Angels’ 1,100-Foot Flight of Fancy

It looks like something more likely to be seen at Cape Canaveral than on a hilltop next to the downtown business district.

No wonder the 1,100-foot-tall, rocket engine-shaped “monument” to Los Angeles that a Culver City artist and a West Los Angeles developer want to build was launching so much debate Thursday.

The proposed spiral tower would be topped with a bronze sculpture of a sword-waving angel that would be twice the size of the Statue of Liberty.

Planned for a hilltop near 3rd and Bixel streets, the structure would dwarf neighboring office high-rises across the Harbor Freeway on smaller Bunker Hill.

As implausible as it seems, developer Gary Clayman and sculptor Brett-Livingstone Strong hope to open the “City of Angels Monument” in March 2003.

The $1.6-billion project would salute art and entertainment. The tower area beneath the angel statue would house galleries, shops, several small nondenominational chapels, a 5,000-seat concert hall and a revolving theme restaurant.

Clayman said financing for the project will come from a New York bank and an Orange County-based investment firm. He said he has begun purchasing land and hopes to start construction this year.

City Council members, meantime, are scheduled to get their first look at the tower proposal a week from today.

“At this point we’re taking it seriously because these guys are serious. They have financing,” said Fred Zermeno, spokesman for Councilman Mike Hernandez, who represents the neighborhood where the tower would be located.

Clayman credited Strong for the eye-catching design. The Australian-born artist, 45, is known for unusual projects--including a 1980 sculpture of actor John Wayne fashioned from an infamous 12 1/2-ton boulder that stopped traffic for days when it teetered over Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.

Strong was reportedly out of town on business Thursday and unavailable for comment. Architects from the Santa Monica-based Gensler architectural firm are assisting with the design.

“It’s unusual in every aspect. We should give Brett and Gary a lot of credit for getting this far,” said Seth Sakamoto, project manager for Gensler. “I’m looking forward to standing on top and looking out over Los Angeles.”

Although other pie-in-the-sky proposals such as the 1988 “Steel Cloud” sculpture over downtown’s Hollywood Freeway and Donald Trump’s 125-story Ambassador Hotel office tower have faded away, Sakamoto suggested that the enthusiasm of Strong and Clayman “can propel this to fruition.”

Clayman, 32, said the monument is his first development project. He said financing is being handled through his own Clayman & Co., the Bank of New York and Global Financing Group Inc. Officials of the latter two firms did not return a reporter’s calls Thursday.

Clayman predicted that the monument will quickly pay for itself with visitors’ dollars.

Despite the proposed tower’s unusual shape and size (it will be nearly 100 feet taller than the West’s largest high-rise, the nearby 73-floor Library Tower), Clayman pledged that it will not overshadow the rest of downtown Los Angeles. “We don’t want to compete, we want to bridge cultures and revitalize the downtown,” he said.

Downtown workers who were shown a sketch of the proposed monument Thursday were not convinced, however.

“It will stick out like a sore thumb,” said legal secretary Cathy Harrold.

“It’s too flamboyant for me. I wouldn’t want to look out at it,” said Aaron DeVille, a communications technician who works on the Library Tower’s 48th floor.

Howard Handwerker, a trust company executive who works on the 11th floor, said: “It looks like Vegas. Is the casino going to be up on top?”

But Eric Baso, a ninth-floor data clerk, gave it a rave. “I’d like to work in a building like that,” he said.

And at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce office, which is across the street from the proposed tower site, legislative manager Jerry Jeffe was ready to welcome the angel monument to the neighborhood.

“I think it will enhance the city, not detract,” Jeffe said. “I think it fits in.”