HILLTOP PARK STRIKES JACKPOT WITH TUNNEL DEAL.

Byline: Terri Hardy Daily News Staff Writer

Forget the Hollywood Boulevard sinkhole, the dirt, the noise and other inconveniences associated with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's subway construction.

The MTA has been the best tenant Hollywood's Barnsdall Park ever had.

For the right to set up a construction site in an overflow parking lot at the base of the 15-acre hilltop park, the MTA paid the city a whopping $6.5 million in cash in 1994 and will soon turn over land valued near $2 million.

Not bad for a park that has a $1.5 million annual budget.

Barnsdall Park - home to Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock house - has lost none of its 91,000 visitors annually during the subway tunneling project that was plagued by multimillion-dollar cost overruns and time delays.

As a bonus, the park is even getting $17,000 a month because the MTA missed its Feb. 1 construction deadline.

``This was definitely a windfall for the park,'' said Al Nodal, director of the city's Cultural Affairs Department. ``A lot of negative things have happened with Metro Rail, but with the park, they're leaving a good legacy.''

Still, no one at the MTA can clearly say just how they came to pay out $6.5 million.

No guidelines were followed. No property value assessments were made. No calculations of possible damages were outlined as they were in previous real estate leases of this kind, said Jim Wiley, manager of MTA's real estate acquisitions section.

``Nobody knows how they came up with (Barnsdall's) figure,'' Wiley conceded.

Critics of the deal argue that the MTA lease payment typifies the inappropriate ways that the agency chooses to spend its money.

It is of special concern, they say, because businesses and communities are battling for compensation over impacts from MTA construction.

``It's very questionable. It looks like a buyout,'' said Chris Shabel, president of the Hollywood Damage Control and Recovery advocacy group. ``This has become a money train - a politicians' system where they hand out money to people supportive of the system and forget about the people who really need help.''

Current and former city officials who cut the deal say it was just good business.

``We came in asking for a lot, saying we need to renovate Barnsdall Park - we wanted to know how far the MTA would go,'' said former City Councilman Michael Woo. ``No one was holding a gun to the MTA's head.''

Larry Zarian, chairman of the MTA, said the agency was pressed to move forward on the project.

``At the time it probably sounded like a good deal, but in hindsight we probably spent too much,'' Zarian said. ``Is it fair? Probably not. But delays could have cost millions more.''

The MTA head, who was not with the agency at the time of negotiation, said there should be ``clear guidelines'' in such negotiations.

MTA spokesman Steve Chesser said there are no guidelines for the kind of compensation arrived at in the Barnsdall case when they're negotiating over public land.

``It's simple negotiation, what both sides say is fair and reasonable,'' Chesser said.

But a 1991 report done for the MTA on the tunneling project outlined federal and state laws that required the agency to determine the payment by determining fair market value and finding ``comparable rates.''

The laws are in place to ``safeguard the rights of landowners and public agencies and ensure just compensation for acquired properties,'' according to the report.

Jim Kenna, director of the Federal Transit Administration's Office of Program Management, said he was surprised that the MTA would negotiate a real-estate deal without any particular methodology.

``They sure shoot themselves in the foot, don't they?'' Kenna said.

Chesser traces the Barnsdall deal to 1991, when the MTA proposed saving time and money by drilling four subway tunnels at one time through a single access shaft on Barnsdall Park property.

At the time, it was estimated that the consolidated tunnel could save $14 million to $15 million. The key was beginning construction as soon as possible, without protracted negotiating, Chesser said.

City officials said they came to the table with sizable fears about MTA's construction record and frustration because the agency hadn't paid out enough in the past. The MTA's eagerness for the deal meant they were dealing from a position of strength.

``I was in the driver's seat, I dictated the terms,'' said Al Carmichael, planning officer for the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department who negotiated the Barnsdall agreement. ``If it fell through at Barnsdall they would have had to start all over again with a new route.''

Carmichael said he was still smarting over the deal the agency had cut for its large construction project at MacArthur Park, where more than half of the 32-acre facility was closed for nearly two years because of MTA construction, Carmichael said.

The MTA paid $6.5 million for construction rights at MacArthur, Chesser said.

Carmichael said the Barnsdall tunneling project was their chance to even the score: an opportunity for the city to ``share the wealth'' because of the estimated savings.

Woo and his staff had their own agenda, anxious to bring hefty benefits into a community that had already suffered from MTA construction.

``We told them we wanted a library, and discussions centered around how much it would cost to build,'' said Patrick Michell, former legislative analyst for Woo. ``Sometimes the MTA would complain, and we'd say, well, that's the cost of building Metro Rail.''

The $6.5 million figure was decided fairly quickly, Michell said. But Recreation and Parks officials objected to the use of the funds for a library, saying they needed the money for long-delayed renovations.

MTA set aside the $6.5 million at the end of 1991 and began preparations to dig. City officials wrangled for some time over how the money would be spent, but finally, the renovation plan won.

Nodal said a park overhaul otherwise would have been impossible for the cash-strapped city.

``Barnsdall has all kinds of physical problems because they've gotten no money, it's been undercapitalized for years,'' Nodal said. ``I didn't see any way we could have generated any serious dollars for restoration.''

The master plan envisions three phases of renovation, including restoration of the landscaping to resemble how the grounds looked when they were created for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall.

Mapped out are groves of olive trees on the hillside and meandering roadways to create ``an ambience of the 1920s,'' said Julie Riley, the city's project manager in charge of the renovation.

Also, watering systems in disrepair will be replaced, bringing them up to standard, Riley said.

Meanwhile, the MTA ended up going over budget in its project anyway - despite the consolidated tunneling.

Major construction problems - including the appearance of an 80-foot sinkhole - put the cost of completing the tunnels beneath Hollywood Boulevard and Vermont Avenue $66.7 million above the budget estimate, MTA documents show.

The entire project is $123 million over the original $1.5 billion budget, officials said.

Originally expected to be completed in August 1995, officials now believe work will end in December 1998.

The Federal Transit Administration and the MTA records show the agencies expected no significant impacts on the environment. And while construction debacles created havoc for surrounding merchants, there were few problems inside the park.

The park never was closed because of construction, but the main road to the entrance was moved, and visitors traveled a short distance on dirt. Construction crews took up less than two acres of the park, in an overflow parking lot at the bottom of Barnsdall. Excavated dirt was piled there.

Riley said the biggest problem caused by construction has been large retaining walls around the construction site creating a ``foreboding'' entrance.

And while attendance records before 1994 are no longer available, Cultural Affairs officials said that park visits and the number of people enrolling in its art programs have stayed the same, at between 91,000 and 92,000 people a year.

``It hasn't changed a whole lot over the years,'' said Jane Kolb, spokeswoman for the Cultural Affairs Department.

Since the MTA has undergone a steady stream of cost overruns, other parks - such as Weddington Park in North Hollywood - have not done as well.

Renee Weitzer, planning deputy for City Councilman John Ferraro, whose district includes Weddington, said such deals aren't as likely in 1996.

``When they made that deal at Barnsdall, the MTA had a lot more money than they do now,'' Weitzer said.

The MTA has set aside about $400,000 to soften the blow of construction on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood.

But no major renovations will be coming to nearby Weddington Park even though the MTA is building a subway station across the street and set up a major construction site on adjacent land.

The MTA first offered $500 in exchange for rights to tunnel beneath the park, then upped its offer with land valued at $75,000.

MTA officials said that the situation at Weddington is different from Barnsdall because impact is minimal, and the construction site is adjacent - not on - park land.

The legal distinction doesn't mean much to Kim Greene, a homeowner who lives a block from the park and construction and sees plenty of problems.

``It's not the same park anymore; it's dusty and the noise is horrendous,'' Greene said. ``You can't send your kids to the park themselves anymore because of all the workers and the trucks barreling around the corners.''

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Photo

PHOTO Visitors heading up to Barnsdall Park in Hollywood mu st pass through the Metro subway construction.

Bob Halvorsen/Daily News