Plans for the redevelopment of the soon-to-close Santa Monica Airport have become clearer after the City Council approved an agreement with Sasaki Associates in December that would deliver a “Great Park” concept to the 227-acre site after 2028.
The new *Airport Conversion Planning Project agreement calls for a five-phase public consultation and research effort to be conducted by the firm before the end of 2025. A framework will come first in Phase One and precedes a draft of the project’s guiding principles in Phase Two, with the eventual naming of a study-informed ‘preferred scenario’ and alternative suggestions being produced by the end of Phase Three.
Phases Four and Five will round out the plan with a proposed implementation strategy for the alternative and eventual publication of a ‘Preferred Scenario Vision Book’ that coalesces the previous four phases into one written framework. Considerations for the immediate on-site activations after ‘Day One’ (e.g. January 1, 2029) are also to be included at Phase Four. More than 60 meetings are planned in total. Santa Monica is also asking Sasaki to name a principal design and planning manager by the end of this month.
“Having been a Recreation and Parks Commissioner for almost 14 years, I believe that our city needs more park space,” Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock said in a press release. “I am impressed by Sasaki and look forward to kicking off the process in bringing a great asset to our community.”
The 102-year-old airport represents almost 5% of all city-owned land and is restrained by the 2014 Measure LC, a voter-approved which prohibits the development of the site to only public parks and their related facilities. Sasaki will leverage its ongoing experience as part of the conversion of the 600-acre former Ellinikon International Airport in Athens, Greece in the execution of the Santa Monica plan. The project will almost triple Santa Monica's stock of open space, which presently stands at just 130 acres citywide.
*Read more about the five phases and Sasaki's plans in the city's staff report here.
12 Comments
As someone living beneath the current flight path (can you hear those plane props now as I write?), I welcome this conversion. It can't come soon enough.
Yikes! Who pissed in your Wheaties this morning? Not lobbying for the change in airport policy and land use, just looking forward to less noise is all (fewer jets overhead flown by those elites you seem to loathe). And I don't live in SM.
We shared our backyard wall with SMA. Noise you get used to it and it's not that bad, but jet fuels are very apparent and might have a long-term effect. Believe it or not, many neighbors were against the park idea as if it was going to invite vagrants. That airport, besides some emergency purposes, is useless for regular folks who fly economy seats.
Seems like the park idea is gaining some muscles. It will take years to build and grow the park but somehow will be great for future generations.
Btw, Santa Monica's favorite public space is the beaches.
Except for the studio spaces and Typhoon Restaurant and Spitfire Grill in its earlier days when we used to have breakfast and lunch. You could sit on the deck of the restaurant and listen to the talk between the pilots and the tower from the speakers. Lots of memories...
Spitfire Grill! One of my favorite dive spots ever, Orhan. Very sad to say goodbye there. Have you been to its replacement, The Cloverfield? It's really maximized that outdoor location in a nice way, though its trendiness couldn't be more opposite. Times change....
And yes, plenty of 'news' items on here are purely promotional without context, it's true.
I have been to the new place once to meet a friend . They didn't have corn beef hash and eggs.:(
"The project will almost triple Santa Monica's stock of open space, which presently stands at just 130 acres citywide."
This is blatant mis-information. It is intentionally discounting the 245 acres of sand along Santa Monica beaches as EXISTING park space. At 86,452 Santa Monica city population (actually declined from 91,105 since 2021), if we add the 245 acres of beach to 130 acres of park space (this article cites 130 acres), that's 375 acres of park space, or at least 4.34 acres of park space per 1,000 residents ALREADY, much greater than the often cited "meager existing 1.4 acres of park space per 1,000 residents". If Santa Monica had so little outdoor park space and things to do, why would so many people live here, as well as the homeless?
Sources:
https://worldpopulationreview....
https://www.santamonica.gov/places/parks/santa-monica-state-beach#:~:text=The%20State%20Beach%20stretches%20over,Monica%20and%20California%20State%20Park.
I don't know, Frank Gehry?
Where's all the other comments lol. Meanwhile this is the first time i have heard architects/designers complain about creating parks...
who's complaining?
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