Promoting Serenity Amid Urban Hub

The three girls from remote Lassen County don’t realize it. But Kayla Kokkonen, Elin Kuzmack and Constance Diaz are exactly whom the people reinventing Los Angeles’ most ambitious public park are looking for.

The 12-year-olds breezed into Exposition Park this week for the state Science Fair to display their junior high research project. It dealt with making tomato plants grow in a cold, windy climate--like theirs, in Northern California’s eastern mountains.

The girls’ cardboard-sided exhibit was one of 855 school projects being shown on folding tables lining the three floors of the state’s California Science Center. The three couldn’t wait to get it set up so they could explore the 5-year-old center, known for its kid-friendly displays and exhibits.

After that, they planned to check out the city’s Rose Garden, said to be the country’s largest, and the county’s Natural History Museum next door. Finally--before heading off to Disneyland and the Getty Center--they planned to peek through the locked gate at the city-county-state-run Memorial Coliseum, the scene of many famous events over seven decades.

“Just walking in the door, I went, ‘Whoa!’” Kayla said of the $85-million Science Center. A stately, old-looking brick exterior hides its high-tech, airy interior.

That blend of old and new--and that enthusiastic visitor reaction--is what Exposition Park officials are seeking as they near the midpoint of a $1-billion overhaul of the 160-acre park that began as Agricultural Park, a mile south of downtown Los Angeles.

For the first time in its 126-year history, its three owners--the city, county and state--are working together to promote its diverse features to local residents and tourists.

The new “branding campaign,” as park operators call it, may be just in time. New downtown attractions ranging from Staples Center and Disney Hall to a proposed professional football stadium are already stealing luster from the “EXP,” the new nickname designed to show that “X” marks the spot for Exposition Park.

What little promotion that has been done for Exposition Park has come from its individual tenants: the Science Center, Coliseum and Sports Arena, Natural History Museum, African American Museum, Swim Stadium and Rose Garden.

“Our strategy now is to use our collective synergies,” says Jon Gibby, Exposition Park’s acting manager. “We already have 4 million visitors a year. With that kind of world-class profile, we feel we truly are at the literal and figurative crossroads of the L.A. market.”

Gibby, 47, of Granada Hills is a former Bank of America and Unocal corporate affairs manager who for 20 years helped give away more than $50 million of company money to grant-seekers. He was appointed nine months ago by Gov. Gray Davis and reports to a nine-member park board of directors who are also appointees of the governor.

The state is the primary manager of Exposition Park because it owns 120 of its acres, Gibby said. And because of the evolving nature of the park, his is not just a caretaker’s role.

For nearly a decade, the park has seemingly always been under construction. The latest phase of work, however, could have the most impact on visitors:

* Construction of a $30-million, 2,100-space parking structure over the site of a 650-space surface lot near the front of the Coliseum will begin soon. It will free up other asphalt parking areas on the park grounds for other uses. The new lot will open in 2004 and will be accompanied by a new Figueroa Street entrance.

* Conversion has begun of the park’s 90-year-old armory building near the corner of Exposition Boulevard and Figueroa into a $24.3-million public charter school. The 850-pupil elementary campus will specialize in science when it opens in 2004. The school will be run in conjunction with a new $27.7-million Center for Science Learning. It will operate in partnership with the Science Center and nearby USC, which will train teachers there.

* Development of a $30-million recreation complex next to the city’s 1932 Olympic Swim Stadium is underway. The 80,000-square-foot Exposition Park Intergenerational Community Center will have facilities for senior citizens and children but will specialize as a swim training center. It will be Los Angeles’ largest recreational center when city parks officials and four private partners finish it next year.

* A new grassy park and promenade area will be built near the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in 2004 to help link the nearby residential neighborhood with the new community center.

Other expansion projects planned as part of a 1993 Exposition Park master plan are scheduled to get underway next year and in 2004. They include the three-year development of a $110-million second phase of the Science Center and the construction of a “museum walk” that would connect the Science Center, the African American Museum and the Natural History Museum.

A three-year modernization project for the circa-1913 Natural History Museum is proposed to begin in 2006 and will cost $200 million to $300 million.

Nearing completion is an interior renovation project at the African American Museum, which was chartered in 1977, and the $7.5-million seismic retrofitting of the spaceship-shaped Sports Arena, which first opened in 1959.

The Clippers professional basketball team, which used to play at the Sports Arena, now uses the Staples Center. But the 15,000-seat Sports Arena stays busy as a venue for concerts and USC men’s and women’s basketball games, Gibby said.

Still, officials hope the new “EXP” marketing effort--being handled for free by Rogers & Associates, Vigon/Ellis Inc. and DDB Worldwide Communications Group--will help draw new users to the arena and the Coliseum.

Despite the new football stadium being talked about for a site near Staples Center, the 92,516-seat Memorial Coliseum remains viable, Gibby said.

Built in 1923, the Coliseum is historic: It’s the only sports venue in the world that has hosted two Olympic Games, two Super Bowls and a World Series, he said.

Nonetheless, “we need to be successful with what we do. We need more signature events at the park,” Gibby acknowledged.

Maybe so. But Erik Garcia and Ted Bradshaw might disagree. Exposition Park seemed to be their private, personal refuges this week as the two enjoyed themselves less than 500 yards apart.

Nine-year-old Erik, a Pico Rivera third-grader, was panting with excitement and perhaps a little exhaustion after negotiating a two-story mock cliff-climbing wall inside the Science Center. “I love this place,” he said.

Outside in the 76-year-old Exposition Park Rose Garden, Bradshaw, a middle-aged social caseworker from Compton, was quietly meditating among the 15,000 rose bushes.

“This place is serene and safe and inspirational. It’s surrounded by such diverse culture in the hub of the city,” Bradshaw said. “And the amazing part is, it’s free.”

Maybe that should be part of Exposition Park’s new marketing campaign.