by Kevin Cody
A proposed $100 million Hermosa Beach Civic Center, potentially financed by the sale, or lease of city-owned property, staff reductions, and bonds, received a positive reception from the city council during a three-hour city facilities meeting Wednesday evening, November 29.
“I believe in investing in our community, like our predecessors did,” Mayor Justin Massey said. “The buildings we love, the places we love are here because someone had the vision and spent the money to make something future generations would enjoy.”
Massey pointed to the new Vista School built on the old North School site, and the recent Hermosa Valley and Hermosa View school renovations as examples. Voters approved a $59 million bond in 2016 to finance the school projects.
Jeffrey Fullerton, of Fullerton Consulting, presented the council with four options for replacing, or renovating the city hall, the adjacent police station, and the Los Angeles County Library.
The current city hall was completed in 1965, at a cost of $328,000 ($3.2 million, adjusted for inflation.) The County Library was built in 1962, and renovated in 2020.
“If done right, I think this can have a positive contribution to the city’s budget, or at least be cost neutral,” Fullerton told the council.
“A 2015 study identified about $4 million in maintenance needs ($7 million today, adjusted for inflation). But few of the recommended repairs have been made,” Fullerton said.
He described making those repairs now as “throwing good money after bad,” because the civic center still wouldn’t meet the need for an additional 18,000 square foot feet identified in a 2016 study. That study didn’t allow for the 25 new employees the city has since hired.
Currently Hermosa’s city services are spread across the town. City Hall, the police department, and the County Library are at Pier and Valley Drive. The Community Center, and Community Theater are a block east, separated by the Greenbelt. Parking enforcement and animal control are two blocks south of city hall, at 10th Street and Valley Drive, in a cinderblock building known as Base 3. (“No one knows where Base 1 and Base 2 are,” City Manager Suja Lowenthal quipped during the discussion.)
“If you lay out a building efficiently…you need less staff over time, which is a huge cost savings… Consolidating also creates potential development opportunities, which can then be used to cover some of those other capital needs…” Fullerton told the council.
(Following the council meeting City Manager Lowenthal wrote in an email to Easy Reader, “To clarify an important distinction… future hirings could be limited to save costs based on expected increases in efficiency as a result of the proposed facilities, but not that current or future staff would be reduced.”)
Groundbreaking could take place in two years, Fullerton said. He proposed a year for community input and planning, and a year for financing and design.
“This will be a significant project that will outlast us all,” Fullerton said.
Fullerton proposed four options to remedy what he described as rising maintenance costs and shortage of space at the current civic center.
“The city’s Emergency Operation Center has electrical and plumbing issues that are very concerning for a facility that needs to be available in the event of an emergency,” he said, underscoring his argument.
Option A proposes building a new city hall, a new police station and a new library on Pier Avenue, across from the Greenbelt, a block east of the current civic center. Because the library is County operated, the county would be expected to help pay for the new library.
The skateboard park that now occupies part of the proposed location would be moved to the parking lot behind the adjacent Community Center. A subterranean parking lot would increase the civic center’s current parking capacity.
Option A has the benefit of not disrupting current civic center activities during the new construction, Fullerton said. Additionally, the cost of the new civic center could be offset by a public/private redevelopment of the current civic center property. Newport Beach offset the cost of its new civic center by selling the old civic center for development of the luxury, 130 room Lido House hotel. Fullerton mentioned Torrance is presently studying consolidation of its city facilities, with the goal of freeing up city properties for lease or sale. Fullerton Consulting specializes in public/private developments, according to its website.
Option B would move the civic center to the city-owned storage facility on Valley Drive, south of the current civic center. Like Option A, Option B site could be developed without disrupting work at the current civic center. But the site is too small for additional parking, or to meet future space needs, Fullerton said.
Option C calls for moving the County Library to the skate park site, and moving City Hall to the library site. Among the benefits would be Pier Avenue frontage for City Hall, and additional parking. Option C’s principle disadvantage is the current civic center site would not be freed up for sale or lease.
Renovating the civic center, which Fullerton labeled Option D, promises no benefits, and multiple downsides, he said. Renovations would disrupt city hall and police operations for several years, wouldn’t increase parking, wouldn’t free up space for sale or lease, and could be more costly than building a new civic center.
Fullerton said the debt service on the new Long Beach Civic Center, which he consulted on, is $4 million less annually than the old civic center’s annual maintenance costs.
Fullerton said the $2 million renovation the city has planned for the public works yard, at Sixth Street and Valley Drive, could be included in the new civic center financing. But he advised against including renovations to the Community Theater and the Community Center buildings in the plan because, “Historical renovations are challenging” and costly. A 2020 city study estimated theater improvements at $5 million to $13 million.
Councilmembers Rob Saemann, a residential building contractor, and Dean Francois expressed support for the renovation option.
“Maybe something in between a new civic center, and a new coat of paint,” Saemann suggested.
“Fiscally, renovation is more conservative, and I think for our little city here that seems more likely to receive public support,” he said.
Fullerton responded, “The problem with that path is you do a bunch of small projects, and never get the big one done. If you do the big project, you can move facilities around, and create opportunities to generate revenue, whether you sell the properties or lease them.”
Fullerton added that financing is cheaper on one large project than on multiple small projects.
Councilmembers Raymond Jackson, and Mike Detoy, and Mayor Massey favored Option A.
“It should be obvious that all our facilities are failing,” Councilmember Jackson said. “It’s easy to keep putting a band-aid over what is a gushing, sucking chest wound. You come here any day when it’s raining and it’s embarrassing. You walk through the facilities and it’s embarrassing.”
Detoy compared the proposed new civic center to Metlox Plaza in Manhattan Beach, which opened in 2005.
“Metlox provides parking, and drives foot traffic down to the Manhattan Pier,” Detoy said.
All of the councilmembers expressed preference for leasing rather than selling city property to help finance a new civic center. They also stressed the importance of including the Historical Museum, the Friends of the Library room, and the skate park in a new civic center.
“We have a big punk rock/skate culture here. We want to embrace all of our history,” Councilmember Mike Detoy told the consultant.
Additional reporting by Elka Worner. ER
