March 28, 2013
Local News & Culture Marina del Rey
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Proposed Gehry designed hotel draws praise and concern over height Estate Group. While the project plans were announced weeks ago, the residents of Santa Monica got their first chance to hear from the applicants, including Gehry, and provide input on the wavelike exterior design of the hotel at a community meeting March 21. The applicants stressed that the designs are still being worked out and the public meeting is one of many that will be held as the plans progress. “We don’t take lightly bringing a project like this to the city,” Worthe told the audience. “We think we’ve done a really good job to get to this point, but we appreciate that this is a community process and we need to hear from and work with the community to make this project better.” Gehry, who has lived in Santa Monica for 40 years, noted that the Ocean Avenue site has stood out to him as the “face of the city” and he is excited to design another project in the city after a quarter of a century. Other buildings the architect designed in Santa Monica include his house, the former Santa Monica Place and the Edgemar Center for the Arts. Gehry told the audience that his firm is working to give the hotel structure character and pointed out that the design will likely go through other modifications throughout the process. “Believe me, it’ll get more sculptural, more nicer as we go along,” the architect Renowned architect Frank Gehry has designed a proposed 22-story, 125-room hotel at said. Ocean Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard that features a rooftop public observation
Rendering from Gehry Partners, LLP
By Vince Echavaria A proposed 244-foot-tall hotel designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry in his hometown of Santa Monica has some residents enthusiastic about the name attached to the project but anxious about the height it reaches overlooking the ocean. The so-called Ocean Avenue Project at Santa Monica Boulevard and Ocean Avenue, which includes a 22-story, 125room hotel, residential units, retail and restaurant space as well as a 36,000-square foot museum campus, is the first building designed by Gehry in the coastal city in 25 years. The residential portion features 22 condominiums, 19 replacement rent-controlled units and five affordable housing units, and a rooftop observation deck will be open to the public. Proposed by Worthe Real Estate and M. David Paul Associates, the project is one of several properties identified as an “opportunity site” in the proposed Downtown Specific Plan. Such an identity could allow the site to be considered for more density and height if the project incorporates significant community benefits. “We thought (this site) deserved something special, and frankly we thought that this firm is about as special an architecture firm you can find in the world. It just so happens that (Gehry) is a resident of Santa Monica as am I, so we thought it’d be a perfect marriage,” said Jeff Worthe, president of Worthe Real
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Photo by Christopher Moscatiello
•This Week•
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The award-winning acoustical duo of Stephanie Bettman and Luke Halpin will perform at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica Sunday, April 14.
deck and 36,000-square foot museum campus.
Westchester organization accuses LAWA of abandoning regional aviation solution By Gary Walker A Westchester-based organization is demanding that officials from Los Angeles World Airports address a series of alleged defaults of a settlement agreement regarding the airport’s future plans, including pursuing regionalization of air traffic. The Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion sent a letter to LAWA Executive Director Gina Marie Lindsey March 20 detailing what it claims represents a dearth of good will on the part of airport
representatives since a 2006 legal agreement was signed. The “notice of default,” alleges that LAWA has defaulted on sections of the agreement, which include regional strategic planning, the LAX Specific Plan Amendment Study Process, traffic mitigation and its outreach to neighborhoods, among other things. The biggest problem, says Denny Schneider, a 40-year Westchester resident who heads the airport group, is that airport officials have been nonrespon-
sive to their needs and questions. “We have no choice, except to give up protecting regions and communities,” he said. “And we’re not going to.” The default notice stems from an agreement signed in 2006 involving the airport’s master plan for the area. The topic of regionalization is a critical area of the notice, according to Schneider. His organization claims that LAWA has not formed a regional airport working group that (Continued on page 8)