A Critic’s View: Plummer Park

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West Hollywood Plummer Park
A view of a play area in the new park design. (Photo courtesy of City of West Hollywood)

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n 2007, the city of West Hollywood began to prepare plans for the renovation and redesign of Plummer Park, one of the final steps in a design process that started in the mid-1990s. Last year these plans became a point of major conflict between the city and a group of residents. With complaints focusing on the planned removal of buildings and trees, new additions to the park that are out of context and a design process that they see as having had a minimum of community input.

The contentious design for Plummer Park, prepared by the architecture firm Brooks + Scarpa and landscape architects OLIN, is part of the series of projects intended to celebrate the city of West Hollywood’s 25th anniversary—these also include the West Hollywood Library and City Hall parking structure. Plummer Park, funded through bonds that are now in limbo after the recent dissolution of redevelopment agencies throughout California, is currently stalled (as well as tabled by the city council) until the state can figure out how it will handle projects for which bonds have already been issued and ground ready to be broken.

Despite the current standstill, the project will inevitably pick back up. For this reason, a serious look at the realities of the current state of the park and its new design is in order.

The current animosity is a result of two drastically different conceptions of what Plummer Park is. For city hall, Plummer Park is a city resource, the largest park in West Hollywood and a public space for the entire city to utilize. In contrast, some park neighbors see it as a personal backyard, an everyday meeting spot and a place specifically for the population on the East side of the city.

These two views must find a medium, because both are, to some extent, true.

Plummer Park Today

Today, Plummer Park is shaded by numerous trees, populated by a variety of buildings and is filled, most importantly, with people—lots of them. The park provides diverse uses for a diverse cross section of West Hollywood residents. It is loved and integral to the surrounding community, but also has its share of problems.

Security is a serious issue, and park users have called for safety improvements. Transients lounge in blind spots near the preschool, giving parents a reason to be concerned, and in the evening dark corners between buildings and unclear pathways remain poorly lit. A shooting in July also raised questions of park security.

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The beautiful trees of Plummer Park provide excellent shade, but some are unhealthy, according to an arborist’s study that preceded the design work. The community center aside, the park’s buildings are old and not in particularly good condition. The preschool is housed in a temporary building made permanent, the performance space at Fiesta Hall is woefully inadequate and Great Hall/Long Hall have been subjected to numerous ad-hoc additions and changes over the years. Little of the modest beauty they had remains amongst a tangle of wires, ducts, window bars and poorly constructed add-ons.

In short, Plummer Park is charming, but is in need of repair and upgrades on nearly all fronts if it is to retain its charm, beauty and utility for generations to come.

Enter the design for the new Plummer Park, which consists of a number of large components, some fantastic solutions to real problems and others in need of a second look.

Underground Parking

Without a doubt, the underground parking structure has drawn the most pushback.
Some area residents are concerned over removal of the large trees and Great Hall/Long Hall, while other question whether additional parking is even necessary.

It comes down to the highly divergent views of the park. In the city’s opinion, an improved Fiesta Hall needs additional parking. Some residents don’t see Fiesta Hall as being that busy.

In the current design, the underground lot that cuts across most of the park is a compromise and balance between a number of difficult issues. For example, it allows users of the preschool, Fiesta Hall and community center, in particular seniors and disabled members of the community, to easily access any point in the park—something not possible if the parking is concentrated at one end. At the same time, it is certainly not ideal due to the loss of some older trees and the amount of park closure.
Ultimately, the city and the users of Plummer Park are between a rock and a hard place. Each option will please one group, while causing problems for another.

The balance the city decided upon takes a long-term view of the park’s needs, but is unfortunately highly invasive.

Plan and Planting

West Hollywood Plummer Park
The plans highlight the lush planting that will provide shade and scale to the new park. (Photo courtesy of City of West Hollywood)
West Hollywood Plummer Park
This view, of the same area shown in the plan above may explain some of the resident’s concern—sterile wasteland indeed. (Photo courtesy of City of West Hollywood)

Large areas of planting and paths make up a large portion of the new design and are one of its best features. The design successfully provides variety in terms of intimacy, shade and use between park areas—an explicit desire of many area residents—while reusing a large number of the existing trees.

Calls that the park will be reduced to a sterile wasteland are unfounded, however, concerns are understandable considering the poor quality of images and materials used to present the designs. In computer renderings, trees almost always look sterile, depictions of use are unconvincing and areas of planting that create intricate variations of scale are unintelligible.

The vertical fin screens designed to block the view of the elevators also suffer from the severity of the presented images, as does the fountain, which will be a fantastic addition. Children will love the fountain in the summer (don’t forget a towel) and the cool air down wind on summer days will be much appreciated by those sitting nearby.

Great Hall/Long Hall

Much has been said about the decision to remove the Great Hall/Long Hall structure. Opponents to the idea say they are charming buildings, that it doesn’t make sense to tear down a building that could be repaired and that WPA buildings are a historic resource.

Unfortunately, Great Hall/Long Hall is in the worst possible location, from the standpoint of increasing safety, circulation and the usable area in the park. Smack in the middle, these buildings block views and walkways through the park’s center, create blind corners and take up prime area for additional trees and shady seating. Safety in a park is a matter of vision, clarity of paths and lighting. The removal of Great Hall/Long Hall would make the park a safer place almost immediately.

From a preservation perspective, there is a dose of irony in the argument that Great Hall/Long Hall should be granted historic status and preserved considering the park lost its original historic status.

The California Historic Landmark No. 160 designation for Plummer Park was revoked because the original historic structures and features of the park have long since been removed (such as Captain Eugenio Plummer’s home) and other structures, such as Great Hall/Long Hall, put in. Additionally, the Great Hall/Long Hall structures have been changed significantly from their original state, arguably to an extent that makes them no longer representative of their original era and thus not eligible for historic designation; though that is for the California Office of Historic Preservation to decide.

This is an important sequence of events to acknowledge. History is a highly fluid thing and historic importance highly subjective. The balancing act between what constitutes a cultural resource or an aged burden is often decided by what a structure would uniquely provide for future generations. At the cost of the park’s safety and vitality, Great Hall/Long Hall provides little more than local nostalgia.

Preschool

The preschool is another of the current buildings in dire need of replacement, though it is by far the least contentious. The current building was intended to be temporary and is far past its intended lifespan. The concerns about the new design should be noted, but it is a generally sound, if elaborate structure. Though it would be well served by a reevaluation of its exterior color palette.

Fiesta Hall

West Hollywood Plummer Park
The elevation on Vista maintains the scale of the neighborhood without pretending to be original to Fiesta Hall. (Photo courtesy of City of West Hollywood)

Fiesta Hall is certainly the most precious of the buildings in Plummer Park and I whole-heartedly agree with the decision to renovate and add to it.

But again, the outrage surrounding the new design stems from divergent views of how the park should be used. For the city, Fiesta Hall should be a high-quality performance space for all and thus calls for a “flashy” design. Some neighbors don’t want it to be nearly that busy, or they have called instead for the new addition to match the current Spanish architecture. Unfortunately, were the Spanish style to be used, the original architecture of Fiesta Hall would loose its identity—one would not be able to tell it and the addition apart—making a contemporary style addition clearly preferable. A contrast between old and new would allow both to shine.

With the current design, even if one agrees with the city’s logic, the community’s issues are not entirely unfounded. The new Fiesta Hall is a building that wishes it fronted a main street like Santa Monica, yet it does not. Nestled in a small-scale, tree-lined neighborhood, the addition is, at the very least, over-scaled. Smartly, however, the design turns the main entry to face the park, as opposed to Vista, attempting to maintain the scale along that side.

Getting To Work

The design for Plummer Park suffers from poor presentation materials and a tricky issue in its underground parking, but it will provide a vast improvement for nearly all points on which the park currently suffers.

The underground parking should probably be revisited, but there is unlikely to be a solution that pleases everyone. Something will have to give to find some balance, and it will likely be either a few large shade trees or the ease of access to the park’s buildings.

Check out the plan for Plummer Park here.

Check out the Protect Plummer Park efforts here.

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Chris Bray
11 years ago

The best plan for Great Hall/Long Hall is for the city to wait until the president is here for a fundraiser, then screen it off with a police and fire department staging area and surreptitiously knock it all down with a bulldozer. It can become a Weho tradition.

DM
DM
11 years ago

Plummer Park has been and will always be a park. It will not be “gone forever”,

Sal Gomez - Save The Pickford-Fairbanks Studios/West Hollywood Preservation Alliance

My apologies Gustave. I was just reminded of the title of this piece, “A Critic’s View”. Well, let’s get the facts straight before we formulate a critique. It would certainly save everyone a lot of time!.

Sal Gomez - Save The Pickford-Fairbanks Studios/West Hollywood Preservation Alliance

I will first resort to restating what I said to the Park La Brea News: “Why would the city continue this course of action? There are many more cost effective and restorative alternatives than to simply uproot and demolish what is essentially the heart and soul of this park.This seems like an enormous waste of money and resources and I have no idea why more community residents are not banging down the doors of city hall and asking for the entire plan to be reworked. More community involvement is needed. Those elected officials work for you, not the other way… Read more »

Stephanie
11 years ago

Thanks, Steve or Rob, or whomever, for your opinions under DM. Interesting comments even if totally misled. I hope you will reveal yourself so we can all sit down and talk without spewing venom like you do in these blogs under various pseudonyms; it is so declasse. Infact, why don’t you take “friend” up on the offer to walk through Great Hall/Long Hall with the original plans and have an actual conversation about historic preservation of things years before 1984. Come on. Let’s be civil. You get nowhere being so vile. You are correct in saying that there are people… Read more »

DM
DM
11 years ago

E, you are so very correct in your observations. Thank you. You’ve found the proponents of ‘Protect Plummer Park’ are selfish, self=serving, narrow minded in their attempts at halting any and all improvements to Plummer Park. They have claimed a majority of residents are against the redevelopment of Plummer Park. They site time-and-time again, that they have amassed over 1700 signatures.from the online petition at ‘Change.org” but the total is actually 1234 signatures. The important aspect to point out is that this petition is on a national site, ‘Change.org’ and the overwhelming majority of signatures are from out-of-state. A very… Read more »

E
E
11 years ago

Unfortunately comments that those against the renovations represent the “vast majority” of the neighbors are not true. they simply represent the bullies w/ the loudest voices. I was practically verbally assulted by someone collecting names for a petition when I told him I thought Plummer Park was in desperate need of renovation and even tho I don’t like everything about the plan, i think it will be a great improvement over what is there now. There’s a saying that some things are classic, some are just old. The Great Hall is just old. The renovation isn’t perfect, but its so… Read more »

garby francis leon
garby francis leon
11 years ago

Redevelopment has a long and odorous history in California, typically as a way to line the pockets of developers while sliding money at city officials who toady to redevelopment agendas. It’s been the ugly secret of “liberal” government until recently, but those days are gone now – though apparently we’ll still have to drive a stake through its heart. Unlike the “design critic” who authored this rather condescending pro-redevelopment assessment of Plummer Park, I in fact have attended a number of council and committee meetings as well as community meetings over the past year to discuss the so-called ‘improvement’ plan… Read more »

Chloe Ross
Chloe Ross
11 years ago

The driving (literally) force in this plan is a vast underground parking garage with 170 spaces to run beneath the park from the Santa Monica side all the way to the Fountain side. I have not yet heard a good reason for this, or who will benefit or who will even own it, only that (huge grins) the city will acquire 69 new spaces. Parking spaces are not exactly diamond mines. The WPA buildings will be demolished, the pre-school will be razed, and the facade of Fiesta Hall is to be some sort of space-age upgrade. This will allow for… Read more »

Virginia Gillick
Virginia Gillick
11 years ago

I have attended many many meetings over the past year about the renovation of Plummer Park and I have also become much more involved in the workings of our City as a result of the “Plan” for this Park. There are so many horses in this race that one could never be sure what horse is the lead. I was originally attracted to the idea of “Protecting Plummer Park” due to the huge price tag that is associated with this update. Now I am certain that $41.3 million dollars is more than we should spend and I am convinced that… Read more »

WeHo-NoNo
WeHo-NoNo
11 years ago

I would like to point out the City is only gaining 7 additional parking spots with the expensive and wasteful money being spent on it. Also, the writer does not make clear there are currently two parking lots to accommodate elderly and disabled: one on the North end and one on the South end. The WPA buildings that are currently there have been strategically neglected by those at City Hall. It makes their dire need to improve the park and buildings even more of a case. If they continued to upkeep the park throughout the years, we would not be… Read more »

Geoffrey Buck
Geoffrey Buck
11 years ago

The underground parking was never really just for a renovated Fiesta Hall. It was part of a parking credits program that I do not fully understand myself. When “Phase 2” for Plummer Park was complete there would have been underground parking all the way to Fountain, with above ground parking in the present north parking lot. Plummer Park was just a land bank for the developers.
When the community learned about the plans for Plummer Park they signed petitions, attended hundreds of hours of meetings and made their opinions known to city hall.