CURRENT ISSUES

127-141 N. MADISON AVE.
Updated on September 17, 2019
Pasadena Heritage, the Women's City Club of Pasadena, and the Blinn House Foundation filed an appeal to the City Council, asking for reconsideration of an approval granted by the Board of Zoning Appeals for a large housing and office project. Bordered on the west by the Ford Place National Register Historic District (Fuller campus), and on the south and east by the Playhouse Historic District, this development site required that careful consideration be given to adjacent historic resources. The original proposal called for a five-story project that was too tall, too bulky, and had underground parking from lot line to lot line with no room for saving or planting trees.

After extensive negotiations with the developer and city planning staff while waiting for the appeal to be heard, a significantly revised project emerged that included real mitigations for the adjacent historic resources. With those changes, Pasadena Heritage and its co-appellants agreed that the project addressed the most urgent preservation concerns. The actual architectural design of the project remains an open question but must achieve compatibility with its surroundings. We plan to work with the developer on design issues before the project goes to the Design Commission for concept review. The many letters of support for our position really helped make our case!

Larger questions of how the city evaluates projects seeking a CEQA exemption, how the design review process works, and how the mixed-use zoning designation is problematic, were raised and taken seriously by the council during the lengthy hearing. We will continue to work on those issues going forward.

Pasadena Heritage's appeal can be downloaded here.

The City Staff Report from the previous appeal hearing can be downloaded here.

Pasadena Heritage's letter to the City Council can be downloaded here.

540 S. LAKE AVE.
Updated on June 28, 2019
A five story mixed-use project has been proposed on an irregularly shaped parcel made up of four combined lots, with street frontages on South Lake Ave., Granite Drive, and East California Blvd. Just east of the project site is the National Register-listed English Cottage Revival Mentor Court. With 62 residential units, 9,885 square feet of commercial space, and 157 parking spaces, the project as proposed is massively overscaled. It dwarfs the historic bungalow court and even manages to overshadow the contemporary Granite Park Place condominiums to its east. Pasadena Heritage is working with Granite Park Place’s HOA to advise on their advocacy efforts. In another troubling development, Mentor Court was listed for sale.

2940 E. FOOTHILL BLVD. (AVON SITE)
Updated on June 28, 2019
At a June 18 meeting of East Pasadena residents, hosted by Councilmember Gene Masuda, Pasadena Heritage was very happy to see the latest plans by The Home Depot, new owners of the former Avon site on E. Foothill Blvd. A much-reduced project scope now includes only The Home Depot store rather than a much more aggressive plan that originally included housing, offices, and another big-box retailer. The plans presented responded to nearly all of the requests from neighbors and Pasadena Heritage at earlier meetings. The retention and reuse of the original Avon buildings, designed in 1946 by noted architect Stiles O. Clements with additions by Neptune & Thomas, is a big plus for the project from our perspective. Traffic mitigation measures to be funded by The Home Depot will help protect nearby neighborhoods from cars going to and from the store. More details will be forthcoming as the project makes its way through the city approval process, but construction could start as early as this fall to covert the Avon production and distribution facility and offices into the building supply store. Soon after this community meeting, Pasadena Heritage submitted a landmark nomination of the original Avon building to the city's Design and Historic Preservation Department.

980 S. LOS ROBLES AVE.
Updated on June 28, 2019
A modest Colonial Revival house on S. Los Robles appeared before the HP Commission earlier this month. A landmark nomination of the building was prepared for the house in 1999, but was withdrawn due o owner opposition, and the house would be within the boundaries of the Madison Heights Landmark District. The new homeowners would like to demolish the house and build new construction on the site. City staff suggested a delay of 180 days, and we agreed with a delay but also urged the Commission to landmark the building. The Commission listened to our concerns and directed staff to begin work on a nomination, although it is to be determined whether this will prevent demolition in the long run.

Pasadena Heritage's Letter of to the Historic Preservation Commission can be downloaded here.

STATE SENATE BILL 451
Updated on June 28, 2019
Since the federal Tax Reform Act of 1976, an Historic Tax Credit (HTC) has been available to owners of certified historic buildings. The program incentivizes historic preservation, and even adaptive reuse, by encouraging appropriate construction techniques. Participants in the HTC program can leverage a 20% income tax credit on qualified rehabilitation expenditures (QREs). However, on the federal level, this program pertains only to income producing properties, excluding the many historic homes of Pasadena. In order to bridge the gap between commercial and residential incentives, in the years following the original legislation, 35 separate states have established State Historic Tax Credits of their own. Nationwide in 2018, there were a combined 1,800 Part 1 applications (deems the property eligible), and 1,479 Part 2 applications (preliminary work plan) to tax credit programs. States with adopted HTC programs led the pack. New York State, which has the most applicants of any state, had 232 Part 1 and 187 Part 2 applicants. In contrast, California had just 15 and 11 respectively, due to the fact that regular homeowners are ineligible for the federal HTC. In 2014, the California State Legislature attempted to institute an HTC program statewide. It passed unanimously through both houses, but was ultimately vetoed by Governor Jerry Brown. This year, Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins, who authored the 2014 bill, revived the State Historic Tax Credit. On May 28th, the Senate passed the bill 36-0 and it was ordered to the Assembly. The California Preservation Foundation and the AIA California Council have been crucial in moving this bill forward, and spoke in support for the legislation at the committee hearing. Pasadena Heritage submitted a letter of support. We are hoping that California finally signs this legislation into law and becomes the 36th state to adopt an HTC program. Given the high cost of making repairs to historic homes, we believe that this incentive can promote proper preservation of Pasadena’s historic resources.

Pasadena Heritage’s Letter of Support can be downloaded here.

STATE SENATE BILLS 4 & 50
Updated on June 28, 2019
Earlier this year, two bills made their way through the California State Senate that would change the provisions behind Transit Oriented Development (TOD) statewide. SB 4 (McGuire) and SB 50 (Wiener) would have provided incentives and streamlined development processes for TOD projects in order to stimulate more housing production. The need for housing additional housing is great, but these efforts can have adverse effects on historic resources. This version of the bill was highly problematic, but was suspended until 2020. Moving forward, Pasadena Heritage is working with the California Preservation Foundation and other local preservation nonprofits to ask that extra preservation protections be included in this bill. One request is that properties that are eligible for a national, state, or local register be protected, as there are many identified eligible properties in Pasadena. Another request is to restrict the granting of density bonuses within historic districts, preventing the construction of out-of-scale high-density housing in historic neighborhoods.

Pasadena Heritage sent a letter requesting rejection or amendments to SB 50. It can be downloaded here.

Pasadena Heritage co-signed a letter requesting amendments with other California preservation nonprofits, it can be downloaded here.

FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
Updated on June 28, 2019
In May 2018, Fuller Theological Seminary announced the sale of its 13-acre Pasadena campus, its home since 1947, and said it plans to relocate to Pomona. The multidenominational evangelical graduate institution's campus includes the Ford Place Historic District, open space, and various institutional, multi-family residential, and office buildings. Pasadena Heritage is concerned about the future of the campus, and we are interested in seeing the historic buildings preserved and adaptively reused in a sensitive manner. We also see the campus as a critically important central Pasadena place that requires careful planning. We hosted a meeting on September 12, 2018 to capture ideas, wishes, and concerns from community stakeholders and immediate neighbors and have formulated some recommendations to share with the City and other applicable parties. We understand that Fuller has retained Los Angeles-based commercial real estate services and investment firm CBRE Group, Inc. to market the campus, which will be sold as various separate property groupings.

Information about campus properties for sale can be obtained via a website created by CBRE: http://fullerpasadenaportfolio.com

Pasadena Heritage’s recommendations for the future of the campus can be downloaded here.

101 S. MARENGO AVE. (BANK OF AMERICA)
Updated on June 28, 2019
In late May, Bank of America announced that it will vacate its corporate offices in the Edward Durell-Stone-designed building at 101 S. Marengo Ave., which it has occupied since the building's original construction in 1974. At this time, the future of the property is unknown. Bordering the Civic Center and Old Pasadena, this elegant, monumental, and windowless box clad with travertine, exemplifies the Corporate Modern style and appears eligible for designation as a local Landmark. The architect also designed the Stuart Pharmaceutical Building (3360 E. Foothill Blvd.) in 1958 and Beckman Auditorium (332 S. Michigan Ave.) on the Caltech campus in 1963. The property is currently used for a credit card serving operation, as well as human resources and business lending. The owner has presented designs to the Design Commission on three separate occasions, and met with a working group of Pasadena Heritage staff and board members. Pasadena Heritage recognizes the need for windows to make this building suitable for occupation, but insistes that final design respects the monumentality of the original structure while retaining much of the travertine cladding.

3200 E. FOOTHILL BLVD. (SPACE BANK SITE)
Updated on June 28, 2019
Trammell Crow has submitted a Planned Development (PD) application for a large mixed-use project at the existing Space Bank self-storage site. A Sustainable Communities Environmental Assessment (SCEA) was released for the project in February, and the comment period concluded in March. The U.S. Navy historically used this large property for Cold War-era weapons research. Many original buildings and structures remain, including a 70-foot tall torpedo-testing tank. The property has been found eligible as an historic district; however, due to contamination and the infeasibility of adaptive reuse, most of the site will be cleared. Working with Pasadena Heritage, the developer agreed to retain some artifacts and the monumental torpedo-testing tank, and to place them on the site where they will be part of the public spaces. There will also be an interpretive program that will convey the history of the site. The project has received Final Design Approval, though there were additional concerns about hazardous material remediation at the site. The City is currently working with the developer and state agencies to address these concerns as the project moves forward.

S.R. 710 N. PROJECT
Updated on July 19, 2018
Pasadena Heritage continues to be concerned about how the S.R. 710 N. project could impact our community and valued historic properties for many years to come. Caltrans has been recently considering four project alternatives that mark a new chapter in the fifty-year story of the S.R. 710: Transportation System Management/ Transportation Demand Management (TSM/TDM) Alternative, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Alternative, Light Rail Transit (LRT) Alternative, and Freeway Tunnel Alternative (with two variations, a single-bore tunnel and dual-bore tunnel). Pasadena Heritage serves as a Consulting Party for the project and has always opposed the Freeway Tunnel Alternative, which would cause, by far, the most adverse effects on historic properties. These effects could continue for twenty to thirty years or more. We instead favor the TSM/TDM Alternative, which would be the least harmful; it would, however, have an adverse effect on the National Register-listed Arroyo Seco Parkway Historic District, and we support appropriate mitigation. This year, we have reviewed and submitted comments on multiple documents, including the Finding of Adverse Effect (FOAE), Focused Recirculated Draft Environmental Impact Report/Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (FRDEIR/SDEIS), and Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). We are planning to comment on the Final Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) when Caltrans releases it later this year. We continue to work with Caltrans to ensure that historic properties currently owned by Caltrans will have proper protections, through City of Pasadena policies or independent historic preservation easements, once they are released for sale.

INTERIM ORDINANCE TO REDUCE BUILDING INTENSITY
Updated on July 19, 2018
The City Council reviewed recommendations at its June 11 meeting from the Planning & Community Development Department on an interim ordinance that would reduce the intensity of new development projects in Pasadena. The State has enacted numerous bills intended to address the statewide housing shortage, a serious problem; however, these law could prompt incompatible infill development in historic neighborhoods. This is one reason why the City is considering this temporary measure now, rather than waiting for the Specific Plans to be updated by the target date of 2021. At the Council meeting, several options were described, and City staff recommended limiting the maximum height of new buildings, arguing that height affects the compatibility of new and existing buildings most. The Council could not reach a consensus and directed staff to investigate this complex issue further and provide new recommendations.

86 S. FAIR OAKS AVE. (HOTEL GREEN/CASTLE GREEN)
Updated on July 19, 2018
A major mixed-use project proposed for the southwest portion of the block that includes the Castle Green and Green Hotel Apartments is once again being redesigned. Originally developed in several phases by entrepreneur Colonel George Gill Green (1842-1925), beginning in 1893, this is one of Pasadena’s most iconic historic properties, and it is listed on the National Register. It is also within the Old Pasadena National Register Historic District. Pasadena Heritage also holds an historic preservation easement on the Castle Green. As such, we are deeply concerned about this project and have followed it very closely through numerous iterations. Architectural Resources Group (ARG) prepared the latest set of plans for Goldrich Kest (also owner of the Green Hotel) and presented them at City Council for informational purposes on January 22. That iteration was the largest and densest to date, with three interconnected buildings including approximately 8,000 square feet of commercial space, 87 apartments, and 4 work-live units. Pasadena Heritage and numerous members of the public expressed concern that the project did not demonstrate compatibility with the historic buildings and their surroundings. ARG has gone back to the drawing board and is in the process of preparing a new set of plans, and we will provide an update when they are released.

135 N. OAKLAND AVE. (FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY)
Updated on July 19, 2018
Fuller President Mark Labberton announced on May 22 that the seminary would sell its Pasadena campus and relocate to Pomona by 2021. Fuller’s 13-acre downtown Pasadena campus has been its home for over 70 years and includes the Ford Place Historic District, which is listed on the National Register. The District’s designation status protects the historic buildings, but Pasadena Heritage is concerned about their future and will continue to monitor the situation closely. In 1902, W. J. Pierce developed the District as a “showplace” upscale neighborhood. Contributing buildings represent the work of prominent architects. In 1912, the only Greene and Greene-designed apartment building was built on what is now the Fuller campus—the Herkimer Arms. Pasadena Heritage fought to preserve this building when it was slated for demolition, and ultimately, thanks to Heritage Housing Partners, it was relocated in 2009 to N. Raymond Ave., just north of Maple St.

464 E. WALNUT ST. (FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF PASADENA/UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST)
Updated on July 19, 2018
In February, the First Congregational Church of Pasadena (United Church of Christ) sold its historic church building. The Gothic Revival edifice was constructed in 1927 and is eligible for designation as a local landmark. The congregation has not moved out yet; it is currently renting the historic building and continuing to hold worship services and events in it while searching for a new location. Pasadena Heritage understands that the new owner plans to locally designate and adaptively reuse the building, and enter into a Historic Property Contract Program (Mills Act) contract with the City. A landmark application and Mills Act application have indeed been submitted to the City, and we expressed support for the Landmark designation. We have plans to meet with the new owner soon to learn more.

WILSON COURT (BUNGALOW COURT) RELOCATION
Updated on July 19, 2018
Seven buildings comprising an historic bungalow court on the Caltech campus, at the corner of Wilson St. and Del Mar Blvd., were relocated in late May in order to make way for a new building. Pasadena Heritage was initially alarmed when news of possible demolition surfaced last year. We were relieved when Caltech agreed to retain and relocate the bungalow court to a new and suitable campus location at the corner of San Pasqual St. and S. Catalina Ave. Architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod FAIA is in charge of the relocation and rehabilitation plan for all buildings. Pasadena is the birthplace of the bungalow court, a housing type once ubiquitous throughout Southern California. Intact examples are now rare.

170-180 S. EUCLID AVE. (PINNEY HOUSE SITE)
Updated on July 19, 2018
Pasadena Heritage is following a mixed-use project designed by Onyx Architects for the site of the Pinney House, which will be relocated. The proposal was scheduled to go before the Design Commission for Concept Review on April 10. Pasadena Heritage submitted a letter to the Design Commission voicing its concern that the project, as proposed at that time, did not demonstrate compatibility with its surroundings, especially the adjacent Masonic Temple designed by Bennett & Haskell and built in 1926. Pasadena Heritage subsequently met with Onyx Architects to provide feedback. The project received Concept Design Review approval at the May 22 Design Commission meeting. Some of our suggestions were considered in the remised project. We understand that Final Design Review will occur in the near future.

150 E. COLORADO BLVD. ("DARTH VADER BUILDING" SITE)
Updated on July 19, 2018
A large mixed-use project designed by Moule & Polyzoides is proposed for the entire block along E. Colorado Blvd. and between N. Arroyo Pkwy. And S. Marengo Ave. The site is situated at a critical juncture between the Old Pasadena Historic District and the Civic Center Financial Historic District and is presently improved with a non-historic office building built in 1980 and sometimes called the “Darth Vader” Building because of its black glass exterior. Members of Pasadena Heritage’s Advocacy Committee reviewed preliminary plans in March and found the new project to be compatible with its surroundings, overall. Though a large project, the massing and architectural design and articulation are appealing and context-sensitive. It will also clearly come to and positively address the street, which the current building does not, thus re-establishing the pedestrian experience along Colorado Boulevard. The project went before the Design Commission at its June 26 meeting for Preliminary Consultation, and Pasadena Heritage submitted a letter expressing support and providing a few suggestions on how to improve its contextual relationship.

HISTORIC ROUTE 66
Updated on July 19, 2018
On June 26, the National Trust for Historic Preservation released its 2018 list of 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. This annual list draws attention to threatened cultural resources in the United States, and this year, includes Historic Route 66, also known as America's "Mother Road." Route 66 passes through Pasadena and is an internationally significant symbol of America's romance with the open road. While Congress has taken important steps to designate Route 66 a permanent National Historic Trail, which would bring recognition and economic development to the route's historic sites, legislation must be passed by the U.S. Senate and signed by the president before the end of 2018. Otherwise, a vital preservation opportunity may be lost. Pasadena Heritage urges its members and all those interested to sign a petition in support a National Historic Trail Designation for Route 66.

The petition is available on the National Trust's website at: https://secure2.convio.net/nthp/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1277&_ga=2.70623764.568420419.1530043415-169367900.1530043415

CIVIC CENTER TASK FORCE
Updated on July 19, 2018
The Task Force met several times since its formation in July 2017 to discuss what should happen to the YMCA and YWCA blocks, as well as Centennial Plaza and its immediate vicinity. In May, the Task Force approved final recommendations for presentation to the City Council regarding setbacks, open space, building height, land use, and public improvements in the National Register-listed Civic Center. Unable to agree on the appropriate next steps, the Council directed staff to return with more information. The most debated items at the Council meeting were the setback for any new buildings across from City Hall and the need for more economic analysis. The matter will be heard again in the next two to three months. City staff is gathering more information to present for clarification. Pasadena Heritage remains concerned about the Julia Morgan-designed YWCA building, which is currently vacant and in need of rehabilitation, and we have asked the City Manager and Public Works Director for more information about how the building can be better “mothballed” during the interim.

Click to download Pasadena Heritage's Comments on the Task Force's Recommendations
Please go to the City's website for additional information and to download the Task Force’s Recommendations: https://ww5.cityofpasadena.net/planning/civic-center-task-force/