The Daily Briefing

ON THE [VILLA] RIVIERA

Theo DouglasMon. January 28
 

The giant black bandages are starting to come off one of Long Beach’s most eminent remaining buildings–the Gothic 1929 Villa Riviera, at Alamitos Avenue and Ocean Boulevard–which means its exterior restoration is progressing.

How nicely it’s progressing is … not very nicely at all, according to the Press-Telegram’s Joe Segura, who reports that, under all those tarps, some of the residents are very upset at the quality and cost of the seven-month, $3.9 million job.

Segura credits unrest over the Riviera’s makeover with sparking the Feb. 5 recall of the building’s condominium association board president–and the resignation Nov. 20 of the project manager, William R. Dorman of William R. Dorman and Associates Inc., “who cited the ‘constant turmoil’ linked to the project.”

According to the condo association’s Ana Maria McGuan, its finance and budget secretary, only four condo owners truly oppose the project–but McGuan fears they’ll manage to derail it even now, seven months in.

Interestingly, police were called to the Riviera back in October, Segura reports–to have one of the residents opposed to the project, Calla Shane, “subjected to a mandatory 72-hour mental-health exam in a ‘5150′ case–a police code indicating a person who is a possible danger to himself/herself or others.”

(It’s also the title of Van Halen’s seventh record.)

But while they were there, officers figured out that Shane didn’t meet the 5150 criteria. “This is an ongoing dispute over the building’s renovation project,” they wrote in their report, which Segura cites.

Wild stuff.

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