Redondo Beach Studies Proposals for Using Former High School Site

Five years after Redondo Beach voted to preserve part of the old Aviation High School campus for recreation, a consultant has proposed three multimillion-dollar blueprints for the site featuring everything from restaurants to fitness centers to Little League fields.

The long-awaited plans, passed along to the City Council this week, aren’t scheduled for formal presentation until early next month. But city officials already are studying the pros, cons and price tags, which range from $7.8 million to $9.6 million. Most of the cost would be paid with redevelopment bonds.

Spelled out in a report from Economic Research Associates consultants, the plans were drawn up by a team of specialists in planning, traffic, theaters, gymnastics and aquatics. Tentatively scheduled for public presentation Dec. 9 in the auditorium on the site, now known as Aviation Park, the report offers three basic alternatives:

* Make a moneymaker out of the site by leasing space to two medium-size restaurants, and use the revenue to offset the cost of maintaining the rest of the park. On the remaining land, install either three outdoor pools, or two pools and two lighted tennis courts. Construction cost: $7.8 million to $8.9 million.

* Make it as easy as possible to use the gymnasium, auditorium and other amenities by having the maximum number of parking spaces on the open land. Turn the gym into a health club and the auditorium into a major theater. Build three pools, or two pools and two lighted tennis courts. Construction cost: $8.5 million to $9.6 million.

* Devote as much space as possible to open play by installing just one parking lot. Create a soccer field, softball field, Little League diamond and jogging track, and build two swimming pools. Or forgo the Little League field and install two lighted tennis courts. Construction cost: $8.3 million to $8.5 million.

“I don’t like the idea of having commercial (development) in the one corner, or of making the place entirely a parking lot,” Mayor Brad Parton said. “But at the same time, I’ll have to check out the economic side of it and make sure it’s not too big a burden on the taxpayers.”

The report brings the city a step closer to realizing a goal set in 1984, two years after the high school, on the city’s north side, was closed due to declining enrollment. Fearing the school would be demolished and commercial development would rise in its place, a small cadre of residents forced an election to be called on a plan to limit development on 11 acres of the campus that included the key school buildings and the best access to major streets.

By just two votes, the measure passed, although the campaign was among the most emotional and politically divisive in city history. The site--which has been leased for 99 years to the city by the South Bay Union High School District--now is used mostly by local theater groups, who present plays in the auditorium, and TRW employees who work out in the gym. The acreage around it, which also was once part of the campus, is now the Redondo Beach Business Court, a massive office complex.

The fate of the park is still a touchy subject with some. Councilwoman Barbara Doerr, for example, said she plans to study the proposals carefully to make sure that commercial development doesn’t creep in under the guise of recreation.

According to the report, however, some development may be necessary to offset the cost of running the park.

Because the site has been designated a redevelopment project, money from increased assessments can be used to underwrite a bond issue that will pay the construction costs. That will leave the city with the bill for maintaining and running the facilities. Public recreational complexes, however, rarely break even on operating costs, the report noted.

Plays and aerobics classes are moneymakers but they need a lot of parking, which would cut into the space for popular soccer fields and softball diamonds. As it is, the report noted, the city is spending about $230,000 a year to maintain the park, and money from, say, a commercial restaurant lease could cut such costs substantially.

Also a factor is the possibility of a complicated swap of park land for a triangular piece of the office complex. The swap may be too legally and politically difficult to attempt, said City Manager Tim Casey. But if it can be done, the report notes, the new configuration of the land will allow a wider choice of amusements--three swimming pools or three playing fields, for example, instead of two.