Top 10 Civic Center Myths

MYTH #1:  The Julia Morgan YWCA building is in urgent danger and if construction doesn’t begin SOON, we’ll lose the historic building forever.

The City has had ownership of the building since 2010, but has done little to secure it against vandalism or to protect it from water penetration, leading to further deterioration of the building. Certainly, we should rehabilitate it sooner rather than later, but we shouldn’t sacrifice the Civic Center itself to rush a poorly-designed solution, as we did with Plaza Pasadena (now called Paseo Colorado). 

Why not insist on the best plan and the best team to get a good project that will last for generations?

MYTH #2:  Massive commercial development is the City’s only option to recoup the $8.3 Million it paid to purchase the YWCA, and  the only feasible option to rehab the YWCA.

Other options, especially one that prioritized civic uses, were never fully explored.  Instead, with only partial data, the City continues to stand by its conclusion that the best alternative is commercial development, even if that would require that we “throw in the dirt [the Civic Gardens] to sweeten the deal.”  Recouping the $8.3M is an appropriate objective, but only if done in a way that preserves the integrity of the Civic Center.

In the previous Kimpton Hotel project, the City’s plan to recoup this amount was woefully insufficient.  According to the City Manager Steve Mermell, this amount would be repaid over a period of 12 to 27 years!  Furthermore, “if everything went right,” the City would receive $2.1MM per year (from rental payments, property tax, and transient occupancy taxes.)   What the City did not answer is: "what exactly has to go right?"  And, what happens if things don’t "go right?"  

When the City obtained the YWCA parcels via a stipulation agreement with the previous private owner, it obtained control over that entire block for the first time in history.  Sadly, to date there has been no substantive exploration of alternative civic-oriented uses for the YWCA block in the context of the Civic Center as the public’s space and Pasadena’s seat of government.

Why was the public not consulted prior to issuing the Request for Proposals when the decision was made to turn the YWCA parcel over to a private developer and, in the process, privatize the existing historic Civic Gardens?

The City currently leases office space for its Water & Power, Transportation, and Housing departments; it may own other properties that could be reused, and government offices and other civic uses could be consolidated in the Civic Center.

MYTH #3:  The city isn’t obligated to follow the voter-approved purpose of the 1923 Bond Measure.

The citizens of Pasadena voted 80% in favor in 1923 for the bond measure that purchased the land upon which to build the Civic Center. This land includes public open spaces that form the garden-like setting of City Hall and the other buildings in the Civic Center. The City legally claims that the public open space, paid for by the public, is now surplus and can now be used as land for a private commercial project.

The City should not cheat the public out of precious open space that was bought and paid for with public money by the citizens in 1923. Allowing the land that was intended to provide our civic buildings in a garden-like setting to be sacrificed for a private building betrays the public trust.

MYTH #4:  The City Manager claims the Civic Gardens are just surplus land (“remnant parcels”) of no value to the City and its citizens, and that there would be no giveaway of public land, just a "lease".

The nomination for listing of the Pasadena Civic Center on the National Register of Historic Places cite not only the Civic Center buildings but also the park-like setting and “grounds, approaches and appurtenances” belonging to City Hall as having significance.

The Civic Gardens are an “approach” to City Hall; those "approaches" provide a setting for City Hall, making the height of the soaring rotunda even more monumental by providing a space – a lush garden setting – to view and admire the entire façade of City Hall unobstructed by competing buildings.

This project will destroy the setting of City Hall by building a large commercial project in the Civic Center Gardens. 

MYTH #5:  An ‘impartial’ EIR was conducted and the Project has no impacts on the historic setting of the Civic Center, traffic, and parking.

This is unacceptable. Like the Kimpton Hotel before, developer proposals under review, all include buildings that are simply a 6-story addition to a 2-story building, and sits on almost every inch of the YWCA parcel, and YMCA parcel, including the Civic Gardens, with massive losses of trees, sidewalks, and public landscaping.

The YWCA’s character-defining feature is the front facade on Marengo Avenue, and another hotel project could likely again carve up and destroy this ceremonial pedestrian entrance to make way for a hotel valet parking drop-off driveway. Also, did we mention that the project has no parking and is solely dependent on nearby maxed-out garages in the Civic Center area?

MYTH #6:  The City claims that it held 15+ public meetings about the project, and the public has provided lots of input, and there will be more public input.

Perhaps, if you consider public comment at Planning Commission, Design Commission, and City Council, after the fact, public input. No public meetings were ever held prior to issuing the RFPS, and upon receipt of RFPs, to publicly debate whether the open space should be “thrown in.”

For the defunct Kimpton Hotel, a request for proposals was initially developed by the City Managers' Office, in cooperation with Pasadena Heritage, without the Planning Department’s involvement and City Council approvals. Closed door meetings in City Hall were then held to evaluate and select a developer, as well as approve the exclusive right to negotiate which the City claims is not a public document.  The public saw a preliminary plan three days before Christmas in 2013 that already sacrificed the Civic Gardens.

All the “15+” subsequent public meetings had been exercises in “designing the box”.  The key decisions to ‘throw in the parkland’ and to choose this developer were made without any public involvement or debate.

Today, with minimal input prior to issuing the second RFP, the city is following the same flawed process that resulted in the failed Kimpton Hotel.

MYTH #7:  This will be a “boutique” hotel.

A “boutique” hotel is small, with big personality. It’s petite and unique! It should not be much bigger than 100 rooms, with intimacy of size and scale that creates its personal feeling and ambiance. That’s what was promised in Kimpton’s original proposal and by the City of Pasadena in the newspapers. That project morphed into about 180+ rooms and might be  mistaken as new addition to an airport Holiday Inn.

The proposals currently under review are likely to result in the same thing: by using the current EIR, all have the potential to destroy the Civic gardens, with the same large footprint, and rely upon the approvals of the failed Kimpton plans.

MYTH #8:  The proposed hotel will boost city revenue, stave off the budgetary deficits, and recoup the $8.3 million purchase price.

With six new hotel projects planned or currently underway in Pasadena, the City Manager has not performed an adequate analysis to show the impact of additional hotel rooms in the Civic Center on existing or projected city-wide and Civic Center hotel occupancy and room rates. With all these additional new rooms, will existing hotels suffer?

Without this information, how can the City Manager state the project will bring economic benefits, whether from recouping its $8.3M investment or ongoing city revenue from transit occupancy tax? After almost 40 years, the City’s approximately $90M investment in the Plaza Pasadena shopping mall (and the now renamed the “Paseo Colorado”)  that wreaked such destruction on the Civic Center has failed to live up to its promise of revitalizing retail activity in the Civic Center area. 

Another massive hotel or other commercial development is no panacea for the City’s financial problems. Promised economic benefits are uncertain and questionable, at best.

MYTH #9:  “Nothing else pencils out." According to staff, the only economically feasible option for the rehabilitation of the YWCA is to build a six-story, 180+ room new hotel (or similar development) on the adjacent parcel and public Civic gardens along Garfield Avenue and Holly Street. 

“It won’t pencil out” is standard developer City claptrap. At the same time, the City Manager and staff, just as with the Kimpton Hotel, make this claim without knowing what the construction costs or possible financing sources are.

Also, as yet there is no current market analysis and appraisal to support occupancy rates, room or lease rates, and operating expenses. So how can the City Manager make any statement about project economics?

It is important to consider, the National Park Service reports in 2018 alone, 1,013 historic properties were rehabilitated totaling $6.9 billion in development costs, which were compatible in design and scale with the original historic buildings and settings.

While apparently daunting to Pasadena City staff, rehabilitating historic properties is being done with great success in other cities across the nation.

MYTH #10:  The Downtown area, including the Civic Center, has sufficient open space and parkland.

The most important reason for preserving Civic Gardens is that they are the historic, ceremonial approaches to City Hall, and the core of the garden-like setting in which our monumental civic buildings sit. Important, too, though, they provide people with much desired public parkland in which to rest, play, and gather.

In fact, City Council-adopted policies call for an additional 4–7 acres of parkland in the Downtown, and encourage the retention and enhancement of open space and parks. Specifically, these adopted policies call for the “protection of open space from loss to new development”, “spaces that support community activities and celebrations as a necessary part of the public life of the community”, typically those “closely associated with the City’s major civic institutions, namely City Hall, the Central Library and the Civic Auditorium”.

Civic Gardens endangered by Over development. The Give-away of Our public land defies a vote of the people.

Who Is the Civic Center Coalition?

We are Pasadena residents who are passionate about our city. We are architects, economists, urban planners, real estate investors, historians, preservationists and community activists. We came together when we learned that the City Manager’s proposal for a massive hotel development on the entire YWCA block will destroy the civic center gardens along Garfield and Holly streets across from City Hall and encroach on the Pasadena Robinson Memorial.

We are supported by other neighborhood associations, homeowners associations, citizens, and historic districts.

What Do We Want?

• To protect and preserve all historic structures within the Civic Center
• Recognition that the Pasadena Civic Center—City Hall and the garden-like setting— is the heart of our city and is the highest priority
• Honor the values and efforts of the Pasadena citizens who voted the Bond Measure in 1923 to create the Civic Center by making the investment to carry out that vision
• Continue the hundred-year-old legacy our predecessors entrusted to us
• A better-designed project compatible with the Civic Center’s architectural and cultural traditions
• Save and restore the Civic Center Gardens to what was intended
• Respect the Robinson Memorial and it's contemplative setting

This Place Matters!

In 1923, voters approved a bond measure which authorized funds for the purchase of land and construction of buildings that would become the Pasadena Civic Center – City Hall, the Central Library, and the Civic Auditorium, and the grounds and approaches that create the garden-like setting for these monumental civic buildings. The land chosen for the Civic Center was purposely set-apart from the commercial districts. It was a bold vision to make a place that was truly civic following traditional Beaux-Arts planning principles including:

• Monumentally-designed Civic Buildings
• Wide Ceremonial Boulevards providing axial relationships to all buildings with terminal vistas and unobstructed pedestrian sightlines
• Public gardens and green-space along the ceremonial boulevards that create gracious approaches to City Hall and other buildings and public gathering spaces
• Pasadena Robinson Memorial – Internationally-recognized work of art by renowned artist John Outterbridge in a contemplative setting

These civic buildings in this garden-like setting has survived for nearly 100 years and continues to be internationally recognized as one of the best examples of Beaux-Arts architecture and the City Beautiful Movement of the 1920s.

Still, there is one missing (or perhaps troublesome) piece of the puzzle – the historic Julia Morgan-designed YWCA at 78 N. Marengo. Privately owned, in recent years it passed hands from the YWCA to speculative investors, By 2008, owned by an off-shore investor, the YWCA sat derelict and empty. Fortunately, in 2012 opportunity struck! The City was able to purchase the building (for $8.2 million) – finally our chance to fully realize the 1923 vision of the citizens and city leaders.

Having ownership, the stated first priority of the City staff was to recoup its $8.2 million investment. To do that, it prepared a request for proposals for the adaptive re-use of the YWCA. However, with no public input, City staff concluded the only way to do an adaptive reuse of the YWCA, was as part of redevelopment of the entire YWCA block, including the Civic Gardens along Garfield and Holly and encroaching onto the contemplative space of the Pasadena Robinson Memorial. Concluding the YWCA had limited or no financial value, as an incentive to developers, and with no public input, City staff decided to “throw in” the Civic Gardens.

Not until winter 2013, when the proposal of the developer selected by City staff was presented to the public at Design Commission, did it become evident to the citizens that city staff sought more than just the adaptive reuse of the YWCA. The proposal was to build a large hotel, a Kimpton Hotel.

Rather than an intimate, boutique "Kimpton" hotel like those developed by Kimpton founder, Bill Kimpton, the proposal called for a large 185-room hotel, towering over the YWCA and covering the entire YWCA block, including the Civic Gardens.

That project undermined the integrity of the Beaux-Arts architecture and City Beautiful Movement urban planning design (need Matt) of the Civic Center - the monumentality of the City Hall and its approaches, the public Civic Gardens, public open space, the acclaimed work of art set in contemplative space of the Pasadena Robinson Memorial. And it defied the will of the citizens who authorized the bond measure in the first place!

For various reason, including strong public outcry, the Kimpton proposal failed. In response, City staff issued a second Request for Proposals in the spring of 2019 and as of February 2020, is reviewing developer responses.

Before proceeding with any proposal, the redevelopment of Civic Center needs to respect the vision of the 1923 citizens and city leaders. Now is the time to engage the public in a robust discussion to fully realize that vision, one that has stood the test of time for 100 years, and will stand the test of time for the next 200 years.

From our Perspective

The Pasadena Civic Center National Register Historic District, a jewel of our City, is still under threat of demolition to its civic gardens, the Robinson Memorial and approaches to City Hall. The Pasadena Civic Center Coalition, along with other Pasadena citizens continues to raise funds to fight to preserve the YWCA and advocate for:

• Preservation of the open green space along Garfield Avenue and Holly Street, the Civic Center gardens that form the gracious approaches to City Hall
• Preserving the prominence and recognition of the Pasadena Robinson Memorial and its contemplative garden setting
• Preserving the historic Julia Morgan YWCA for civic use

PRESERVE HISTORY - MAKE HISTORY!

CAN WE COUNT ON YOU?     Please contribute!

What can you do to help?

Contribute, send an email, call, attend City Council meetings

On August 15th, 2016, Pasadena City Council cast another vote to sacrifice the integrity of the Civic Center by demolishing the Civic Gardens and garden-like settings of our monumental City Hall as part of a plan to build a 6-story Kimpton Hotel facing city hall.

Following the August 15th vote, we filed a lawsuit to challenge their approval of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Surplus Land declaration. Our lawsuit continues, and since then much has happened:

• Kimpton Hotels asked that the City donate all of the Civic Gardens and the YWCA buildings
• Citzens packed council chambers and said, “No, we will not give away the Civic Gardens and YWCA!” Council listened and said no to Kimpton Hotels
• City Council appointed a 15-member, citizen-based Civic Center Task Force
• The Civic Center Task Force met and recommended preserving the architectural heritage of the civic buildings, the Pasadena Robinson Memorial, and YWCA; and prioritizing civic uses
• In summer 2019, City Staff issued a second Request for Proposals, with a requirement to build on the Civic Gardens!
• 10 developer proposals were received and discussed at a November City Council meeting - now two proposals for hotel development are being considered.
• City staff rejected 5 with no public input and continues to review the remaining 2, all of which include constructing a 6-story, 60-foot  building on the Civic Gardens north and south of Holly Street

Please CONTRIBUTE to help fund the lawsuit! Let City Council and Pasadena Heritage know your thoughts. They need to hear from you.

Email City Council

Mayor: [email protected]
District 1: [email protected]
District 2: [email protected]
District 3: [email protected]
District 4: [email protected]
District 5: [email protected]
District 6: [email protected]
District 7: [email protected]
City Clerk: [email protected]

Pasadena Heritage Needs to Hear From You

Email or call Pasadena Heritage. They Needs to Hear From You
Sue Mossman, Executive Director: [email protected]
Andrew Salimian, Preservation Director: [email protected]
Please include a cc to Brian Baker, Chairman of the Board
Telephone (626) 441-6333 to leave a message

Tell them

• Our First Priority is the Civic Center. We will not settle for a project that sells off the Civic Gardens or destroys the garden-like setting of City Hall
• The YWCA is an important historic resource. While important, it is one of many important historic resources of the Civic Center as a whole – City Hall and the Civic Gardens along Holly and Garfield that create the garden-like setting; the Pasadena Robinson Memorial prominence and contemplative setting, and the YWCA. We should not sacrifice the integrity of the Civic Center to rehabilitate the YWCA
• The Civic Gardens surrounding City Hall, the contemplative setting and prominence of the Pasadena Robinson Memorial, and the views to City Hall are essential to the historic integrity of the Civic Center
• Let's preserve all - the Civic Gardens, Pasadena Robinson Memorial prominence, unobstructed views to City Hall, and the YWCA!

Join our mailing list at

[email protected]

Contact us

[email protected]

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Posted by Laura Liptak · November 06, 2019 12:45 PM

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Posted by Laura Liptak · October 30, 2019 12:14 PM

Robinson Memorial - Civic Center Gardens' Jewel

Posted by Laura Liptak · October 15, 2018 12:37 PM

Ann Scheid conducts a series of free tours of the Pasadena Civic Center.  The tours will last about 90 minutes. Tours will be held regularly on Saturday mornings at 10 a.m., every other week.

Ann Scheid is a historian and scholar with special interests in architectural history, planning history and the history of landscape architecture. The author of several books and articles on Pasadena and Southern California history, including the history of Pasadena’s renowned Civic Center. She is currently Curator for the Greene & Greene Archives, The Gamble House Conservancy, at the Huntington Library. Ann has worked for the City of Pasadena as a planner specializing in historic preservation and design review and for the State of California as an environmental planner. She has also been involved in the community, serving on City commissions and the boards of the Pasadena Historical Society; the Society of Architectural Historians, Southern California Chapter; American City and Regional Planning History; and the California Garden and Landscape History Society. She is a frequent lecturer and tour guide in Pasadena and Southern California.

Join us on a tour of the Civic Center, scroll down to RSVP:

In response to the novel corona virus (COVID-19), and in accordance with the most recent Pasadena public health orders, we have temporarily suspended conducting tours at this time.   When we can resume, we hope you will join us on tours, as we demonstrate, speak at City Council and commission meetings, and network to get the word out. 

Past Events are Listed on the Calendar Below.

• Saturday, February 1, 2020 at 10 a.m. Meeting place: in front of City Hall
• Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 10 a.m. Meeting place: in front of City Hall
• Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 10 a.m. Meeting place: in front of City Hall
• Saturday, March 14, 2020 at 10 a.m. Meeting place: in front of City Hall (CANCELLED)
  
• Saturday, March 21, 2020 at 10 a.m. Meeting place: in front of City Hall (CANCELLED)
  
• Saturday, April 4, 2020 at 10 a.m. Meeting place: in front of City Hall (CANCELLED)
  

Who Is the Civic Center Coalition?

We are Pasadena residents who are passionate about our city.  We are architects, economists, urban planners, real estate investors, historians, preservationists and community activists. We came together when we learned that the City Manager’s proposal for a massive hotel development on the entire YWCA block will destroy the civic center gardens along Garfield and Holly streets across from City Hall and encroach on the Pasadena Robinson Memorial.