The mayor and the city manager explain why the city should—nay, must—close our largest temple of knowledge

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA

Thirty-two years ago, city officials were so bullish about the grim new Burton W. Chace Civic Center that they threw open the doors before it was finished, just for a day: July 4, 1976.

“It was kind of symbolic, more than anything else. We were celebrating the bicentennial and we had to do something,” remembers former Councilman and Mayor Dr. Thomas Clark, who served 30 years, from 1966 to 1996. “We had a ceremony there and I gave a speech, and I think someone else gave a speech.”

It was an important piece of architecture. Our Civic Center—the 14-story City Hall and two-story library—was the work of Allied Architects, a historic teaming of some of the city’s finest minds. They included famed midcentury modernist Edward Killingsworth; Hugh Gibbs and Donald Gibbs, who worked on Cal State Long Beach; and the Kenneth Wings, junior and senior, the latter responsible for Jordan High School and the Harriman Jones Medical Clinic.

This being the early 1970s, the Civic Center’s final look was one of classic modernism (lots of windows) mixed with Brutalism—an architectural style which came out of gritty, deprived, post-war England and emphasized the purest materials.

“At that time that happened to be concrete, and letting the concrete show that it’s concrete, and not masking over with brick or stucco or something that’s not true,” says Cara Mullio, who, with Jennifer M. Volland, authored Long Beach Architecture: The Unexpected Metropolis four years ago.

Our Civic Center is in their book, in all its concretinous, otherworldly glory. You can even see how the library’s rooftop gardens were supposed to look, to satisfy the 1882 deed restrictions on Lincoln Park land, donated by city founder William Willmore on the condition that it remains a park.

Except the gardens leaked, virtually from Day One. Now largely moribund, the rooftop gardens—and, everywhere, all that concrete—are largely to blame for dragging us to where we are today: facing the closure of our Main Library, probably some time in October.

City officials say it’s too expensive to operate; it costs $4.8 million of the entire library system’s currently budgeted $14.7 million. The plumbing, the rooftop gardens’ irrigation system and the roof itself—all of it leaks, in roughly 40 places. Total repair cost: at least $8 million. Elevator parts are so hard to find that one of the library’s elevators was recently out of service for two years. And the concrete planters on the library roof now might be too heavy for it during a major earthquake, according to a city-commissioned seismic study last year.

So City Manager Pat West spread the word last month to City Council members that he’d want to close the library. He’s done that in the $3.1 billion fiscal year 2008-2009 budget released last Friday.

“It was a great idea, but it never worked,” said West, whose recommendation—still being debated by the Council—was to “begin working on relocating the library or rebuilding it in place.”

West and Mayor Bob Foster say closing the Main Library will reduce a hazard and a potential city liability—and will also help the city eliminate a $17 million structural budget deficit.

According to West, a new library—possibly funded by approximately $18 million earmarked for it in Mayor Bob Foster’s proposed $571 million infrastructure bond and by Redevelopment Agency dollars—could be three to five years away. (The Civic Center is in the downtown redevelopment zone, which qualifies the library to receive redevelopment monies.)

Any plan for replacing it would rely on the branch libraries expanding their hours to cover for the Main Library; there’s some talk of opening a satellite replacement library until a new Main is built. But exact details and precisely how the loss of other services, such as computer access, will be accounted for? To be determined.

Critics wonder why that is.

“We’ve seen a wishlist but we’ve not seen the specificity,” said Fifth District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske. “Where is the concerted study that says, ‘This is what we’re doing, this is the timeline for repairing this’?”

“I feel like there must be some other part of the plan that I’m not seeing—but on other days I just feel like they must think it’s a wonderful idea. And I wonder how that could be,” said Sara Pillet, executive director of the Long Beach Public Library Foundation, a 12-year-old nonprofit that raises funds to cover library expenses not covered by the city. “The biggest concern for us is the services. Ninety percent of people downtown don’t have transportation to get to other branches.”

The Main Library was built next to City Hall, walking distance from the police station and the County Building, precisely for easy access. But the mayor and the city manager say there’s no reason in their minds why it couldn’t be moved somewhere else nearby.

There really isn’t, for much about the Main Library’s future—and that of neighboring structures—remains unresolved. Our state justice system has outgrown the County Building—another midcentury modernist joint, done partially by Killingsworth and Wing. It’s 48 years old, and starting to show its age.

As for City Hall, its elevators and stairwells could fail or become blocked by falling concrete in a major earthquake, according to a city-commissioned seismic study from 2005.

According to West, discussions about who will build and pay for a new County Building have spilled over into similar talks about City Hall.

“The people that are talking public-private partnership are just morphing over into ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have this same type of public-private partnership at City Hall,’” West said, characterizing the discussions as involving “banks and financial institutions that would be interested in a public-private partnership.”

There’s also the possibility, someday, of leveraging all or a portion of the Civic Center property to fund a new City Hall.

“Down the road, that may be a way in which we facilitate a new Civic Center,” Foster said. “The general idea is that you would have a developer, in return for more valuable land, build a structure or something that would meet the city’s needs.”

And the library doesn’t have to stay in the picture, the city manager said.

“There’s nothing in concrete that says the library has to stay here next to the City Hall,” West said. It’s a pun, unintended, but it shows just how impermanent our institutions can be.

Tags: budget, city hall, civic center, Long Beach, Long Beach Main Library