Red tape stymies historic preservation effort.

Red tape stymies historic preservation effort

When Cliff Ratkovich began work on the historic Chapman Market at Sixth Street and Alexandria Avenue in May 1987, he was a man with a vision. The Spanish Revival courtyard complex was to be a market and delicatessen with a sprinkling of cafes and boutique food stores like the Scandinavian pastry shop.

Ratkovich, executive vice president of Los Angeles-based The Ratkovich Co., had lots of experience. After all, he had worked on the Wiltern Theatre and the Fine Arts building. But he didn't reckon with the City of Los Angeles.

After doing his part to save the city's past and breathing life into its moribund architectural treasures, Ratkovich is tired. "We try to do good work but you've got to think twice as to whether life is worth this kind of pain, frustration and aggravation. We have a lot of battle scars," he said.

As Ratkovich sees it, the problem is a lack of support from the city for preserving its own heritage and mitigating some of the problems brought on by new development. "Many of the codes that currently exist are not sensitive to the constraints that surround existing historic properties," he said.

Jay Rounds agreed. As executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, Rounds has been in the thick of fighting for the city's architectural heritage. "We don't feel the city has been as proactive as it should in helping make restoration projects work," he said. "It has made projects needlessly expensive. A lot of people who have very good intentions have had difficulty because of problems working through city code issues, and the city has not been adequately flexible in using the state Historic Building Code or other approaches to ensuring that life safety issues are made with creative solutions."

The state Historic Building Code was designed to give owners flexibility in meeting code requirements, but while the state code supersedes local codes, its interpretation is left to local inspectors.

And it's local inspectors who have bloodied Cliff Ratkovich.

"Somehow you're always held hostage once you've gotten a permit only to find that when you're under construction the inspector interprets a requirement differently from the plan checker who interprets it differently from the Cultural Heritage Board, from the health department, from the fire department, from the disabled access department...There's virtually no way for us to predict when we can start and end construction because of interpretation of the codes," he said.

"I've heard of some situations where there may be a problem between one of our inspectors and perhaps somebody from the fire department," said Earl Schwartz, executive officer for the city department of building and safety. "We have met with the fire department on many occasions and tried to minimize these problems. With the turnover in staff, sometimes you run into new inspectors not having the experience that older inspectors have."

"It's complex," he continued. "We try to resolve code problems before permits are issued...but sometimes when you go through a restoration things are not shown clearly on the plan that the inspector picks up out in the field."

Ratkovich tells the story of the sandblasted walls: "The Cultural Heritage Board says it is illegal to sandblast the exterior of a historic building. Chapman Market has two historic office towers with beautiful, high ceilinged interior spaces. The roof leaked and water had stained the walls, there was graffiti and dirt on the interior walls. When other substances were not effective in removing the stains we lightly sandblasted the interior.

"We did something that helped restore and beautify the space -- and we were in violation. We had to stop construction. We were reprimanded by the Cultural Heritage Board who were going to turn the matter over to the city attorney for possible prosecution. I can't tell you how many hours we had to invest and how it delayed the project."

Such delays can be devastating for a sensitive area. "[Mid-Wilshire] is going through a positive transition," said Ratkovich, "and to an extent Chapman Market is leading the charge. Some prospective tenants prefer to test the waters, wait and see, so when you get a tenant who commits to the project you bend over backwards to get them into the space. I can't promise that because of the barrage of bureaucracy I have to contend with."

Bringing historic areas back to life has turned into a mission for Ira Yellin. The developer, president of The Yellin Co., is a self-proclaimed lover of cities, especially the grand architecture of yesterday and the variety of pedestrian activity it inspired. Now Yellin has bought Grand Central Market and plans to use it as a catalyst to revitalize the downtown historic core.

"Unless we can bring some of those areas back to life, it will be a tragedy for the city economically and culturally," he said. "A real urban center gives you the best of what a city is all about. We love foreign cities like Paris and Rome that have that quality of old and new coming together. The older buildings are not historic curios, they're functioning buildings. And there are places where you can sit and watch people. People like that."

Yellin said he sees Grand Central Market and its surrounding buildings as a link that will tie the old city center with the new financial core on Bunker Hill.

Rounds shares his enthusiasm. "Central Market is one of the most important things to have happened in the historic core for a great many years. The whole project is an absolute key in the revitalization of the historic district and can help us break the trend of isolation of the district from the new developments to the west."

Yellin charged the city is no help in such projects. "We have to make an important public policy decision in this city," he said. "If we wish to bring the eastern part of downtown back to life there have to be mechanisms to allow the owners to do it. One of the most difficult aspects of rehab is complying with the codes. Most have developed as a way of dealing with new construction and they have never focused yet on the problems of older buildings.

"We've got to create new codes, or find a way to adapt our codes, to deal with older buildings," he added. "Older buildings can be made just as safe as new, but the code that was written for a 70-story skycraper doesn't work with a building that was built at the turn of the century."

"There must be some effort on the part of the political powers that be that [renovation] is a priority in the city," said Brenda Levin, president of Levin & Associates, a downtown architectural firm. Levin is the architect responsible for restoring the Oviatt Building, the Wiltern Theatre and the Fine Arts Building, and she is now busy with the Chapman Market.

She said that it was clear to her when she arrived in Los Angeles in 1979 that the city "didn't have a strong consciousness in terms of reusing buildings." And that is a loss that can never be recovered. "You lose a sense of intimacy, identity, a quality of craftsmanship and character. What you significantly lost from an urban design standpoint was an attitude to the street that older buildings addressed in a much better way: one that fosters pedestrian traffic, one that has a sense of public space, that creates a human pedestrian scale. The new structures have led to the alienation of the pedestrian," she said.

It is that sense of friendliness that she and Yellin are trying to reconstruct at Grand Central Square, the collection of buildings including Grand Central Market, the Homer Laughlin and Lyon office buildings, the Million Dollar building -- which houses the Million Dollar Theatre, one of the nation's great movie palaces -- and the Bradbury Building.

Yellin said he plans to keep the market as a functioning space -- "We're not going to gentrify it" -- and restore the office towers, one of which was home to the Metropolitan Water District during the `Chinatown' era of water wars, murder and intrigue, Raymond Chandler, mahogany boardrooms and venetian blinds. They'll be first-class, luxury buildings with the same amenities as the new skyscrapers," said Yellin.

Older buildings are the way to go, noted William Delvac, an attorney and principal in the Historic Resources Group, a development/preservation firm.

"In a time when there's tremendous growth pressure and concern about rapid growth, the renovation of existing structures is the sensible way to balance those concerns. We have millions and millions of square feet of vacant space on Broadway, Spring and Main streets. While that space lies unused, we're building millions and millions of square feet to the west creating demands on services there. Given the tax incentives, it's the sort of thing developers should be looking for," he said.

The IRS allows a tax credit equal to 20 percent of expenditures for rehabilitation of a building on the national register of historic places. There is also a 10-percent credit for buildings not on the register but built before 1936. The federal government also allows an owner who places a building on the national register to deduct as a charitable contribution the difference in value between the existing property and its value if it were to be developed. The state provides relief in the form of reduced property taxes: owners must agree to preserve a structure for a renewable 10 year period in return for tax reductions that can reach 50 percent or more.

"It's a real growth area that should attract developer interest," said Delvac, "but there's a real issue that people have had difficulty getting projects approved for reuse."

Code requirements such as handicapped access are a constant struggle for restorers. The narrower doorways of older buildings, the steps, the layout of amenities cannot accommodate handicapped access while preserving the architectural integrity of the structure. According to a spokesman for the Disabled Access Division of the city Department of Building and Safety, the city treats a historic building just the same as a regular building and it will be expected to fully comply with the code.

There is an appeal process, however: if a building owner deems compliance -- including the provision of equivalent access such as lifts or ramps -- a hardship, the Handicapped Access Appeals Commission has the authority to grant an exemption. According to Disabled Access Division Chief Frank Orbin, of the seven or eight appeals his department receives over a typical two week period, 80 to 90 percent are granted.

Other requirements are more complicated. The enclosure of elevator lobbies -- a fire department regulation -- is impossible in some older buildings and can be achieved only at great cost, both architecturally and financially, in others.

"Many of these older buildings are not economically viable as office buildings," said Cherryl Wilson, manager of the 548 Spring St. building and a board member of the Spring Street Association. "You're going to be hit with a whole variety of codes like handicapped regulations and sprinkler. All those things are over and above what you have to spend to make the building habitable again."

Wilson said she favors adapting some older office buildings to housing units as a way of making them cost-effective.

"Housing and reuse can be tied hand-in-hand," agreed Levin. "Broadway is a perfect example of an opportunity to put housing in some of these buildings. All of these issues can be worked on, but one needs a supportive environment to achieve these goals. Part of it is a leadership issue; it has to be a policy that comes from the city."

Ratkovich noted: "These buildings are the history of Los Angeles and there should even be a priority attached to them. The city should be saying `How can we help you?' instead of `Here are the obstacles.' By streamlining the layers of bureaucracy and having consistent interpretation of the codes, you'll have companies like us seeking out those buildings and trying to make them work economically."

"We can't assume the risk of taking on these kinds of projects under the present circumstances," he added. "It doesn't make good business sense."