DOWNTOWN : Board to Craft Civic Center Master Plan

A review board made up of city and county officials will begin developing a master plan for the Civic Center in an effort to better coordinate government building in the area.

The Civic Center Authority’s 10 members will meet this week for the first time since the 1980s, when it stopped meeting because of a lack of interest from politicians. The board, which originally began meeting in the 1940s, was charged with ensuring that the city and county participate in cooperative planning for the Civic Center.

The board’s goal will now be the same, but it is also responsible for developing a master plan for the Civic Center. The mayor and other elected leaders also promise to keep the group alive this time.

Its rebirth comes after nearly a year of informal meetings of government planners organized by the Central City Assn., a nonprofit business group that advocates the centralization of city, county, state and federal offices in the Civic Center and Downtown’s historic core.

Supporters of the proposal say government agencies planning to expand or move their offices could coordinate their plans, making the Civic Center a more efficient center of government. The coordination of building could allow separate agencies to plan for shared-use facilities, such as day-care centers and vehicle maintenance yards.

A Caltrans study has shown that it needs 400,000 square feet to replace its regional headquarters, now housed in two Downtown buildings that are seismically deficient. If Caltrans planners and representatives from other government agencies planning similar moves talk to each other, their building plans could be coordinated.

“It’s an obvious area where, if you had careful planning, you could really revitalize that entire area,” said Carol Schatz, Central City Assn. president. “Part of the issue here is creating a critical mass, enough employees to turn the area around.”

The board’s first meeting is scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday in Room 300, City Hall East, 200 N. Main St. The board is made up of city appointees and county department directors, but state and federal representatives may be added. Members include Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Rita Walters, county Chief Administrative Officer Sally Reed, and Robert R. Yates, general manager of the city’s department of transportation.

The board’s purpose is to “review projects to be built in the Civic Center, recommend acquisitions, street modifications and a logical order of development,” according to Walters’ motion, which recreated the planning advisory board last December.

Reconvening the board makes sense, said Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Walters, whose district includes the Downtown area. Walters is concerned about upgrading the Civic Center’s looks and persuading state and federal agencies that are contemplating expansion to remain Downtown.

“It’s important for us to keep those buildings in the Civic Center rather than have them move to the inland area,” Gantman said. “We’ve spent billions on this Red Line Metro Rail. It’s inappropriate to regionalize and move the government centers to the far ends of Southern California when we built the transportation infrastructure (in Downtown).”

There are 6.5 million square feet in government office plans for the Civic Center area, including proposals to rehabilitate the federal government’s General Services Building and the Los Angeles Police Department’s Parker Center. City consultants are trying to determine whether to rebuild or construct a new facility to replace the outdated and seismically unsafe Parker Center, said Christopher C. Martin, a former president of the Central City Assn.

“We are proposing, essentially, the centralization of some major city, county, state and federal government office spaces,” said Martin, who is also a city consultant on the rehabilitation of City Hall.

A panel discussion on the proposed Civic Center Master Plan will be held at a luncheon meeting of the Central City Assn. at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, 404 S. Figueroa St. Information: (213) 624-1213.