Redondo Beach’s SEA Lab recently celebrated its 20th year educating children and visitors about marine life in and around the Santa Monica Bay.
But SEA Lab’s next year – much less the next 20 – are uncertain. The educational program’s lease with its landlord AES ends on Jan. 1, and with little more than three months before the new year, there’s been little word of what’s next.
Complicating matters is the apparently imminent sale of AES’s Redondo Generating Station, in advance of the plant’s scheduled closure in 2020. SEALab currently lives on AES’s property rent-free, continuing a previous agreement with Southern California Edison. There’s no guarantee a new owner would do the same.
“Right now we’re waiting to hear what the new buyer of the property wants to do,” said SEA Lab Program Director Maria Madrigal. According to Madrigal, the program has language in its lease giving it 90 days to vacate the property once given notice. “We’re not kicked out yet, but we’re looking into different options, should we be.”
SEA Lab is an LA Conservation Corps-run program that was born in 1997 as the result of a legal settlement between Edison and the Earth Island Institute. AES elected to maintain SEA Lab after purchasing the Redondo Generating Station from Edison, also in 1997.
In the decades since it began, SEA Lab has maintained habitats for coastal marine life while educating thousands of visitors. The program also partners with other organizations, including Surfrider, West Basin Municipal Water District, and the White Sea Bass grow-out program, which works to restore the species’ population.
The Redondo Beach City Council, aware of SEA Lab’s tenuous future, made the program a priority in its recent strategic planning session, directing staff to collaborate with SEA Lab and help the program find funding to continue its presence in the current location, according to Mayor Bill Brand.
Madrigal said that brainstorming seeks to keep SEA Lab near the water, though nothing has been formally considered. Ideas include the former On the Rocks restaurant building; the former Gold’s Gym location; and other waterfront-area locations controlled by the city.
SEA Lab’s operating costs would also likely increase after moving into a new property.
“We’re a true non-profit. We don’t make a lot at all, just enough to keep the doors open, to keep animals, and run education programs we have,” Madrigal said. SEA Lab began charging for admission within the last year, to fill in funding gaps. “But we’re still keeping it affordable; the whole point is for people to be aware of local marine life.”
City staff will open formal discussions with SEA Lab for its future after the City Council approves its draft Strategic Plan in October. But staff members expect matters will clear up once AES reveals the plant’s buyer and any redevelopment plans they may have for the property.
“You don’t build a lot of good community will by kicking out SEA Lab on Day One,” said Assistant City Manager Mike Witzansky. “They’re going to need a vote of the people [to rezone the property] and that’s not putting the best foot forward. I don’t see that happening, but we’re not the landlords.”
