HISTORICAL SOCIETY REQUEST FOR ADDITONAL SPACE

 

Recommendation

The Parks, Recreation and Community Resources Commission and staff recommends that the Council:

1. Approve the request from the Hermosa Beach Historical Society to expand their museum space into the hallway adjacent to the west side of their existing room and into City storage in the Hallway subject to approval by the Public Works Department.
2. Consider the use of Room 3 in the Community Center for City storage (Community Resources Department) and as a workspace.

 

Background

The Historical Society has a lease agreement with the City for the use of their museum space in the South Wing. Understanding the value of the organization to the City, Council has provided 100% subsidy for the use of the room since the inception of the lease agreement.

The museum occupies an area that used to be a locker room, with the City retaining restroom space and storage space in the vicinity.

On February 6, the Historical Society requested that the City consider permitting them to expand their use of space in the room.

At the April 3, 2001 meeting this item was approved.

 

Analysis

Clearly the request from the Historical Society would be beneficial to the organization as they attempt to add even better order to their collection systems. The museum would be more functional in that all the space would be dedicated to their purposes and the space would be more inviting for visitors.

Interestingly, this request was made at the same time that Community Resources staff had identified that our storage and workspace needs had outgrown the current space available. In addition, due to cramped storage and workspace, physical work systems for the considerable number of events and programs the Department handles have become dysfunctional.

City staff would like to use Room 3 (previously leased by Project Touch) to address in-house needs. Event and program materials could be stored by season in that space and could be easily loaded into the work van and trucks from that locale. Its proximity to the front office (it is immediately south of the office) makes it also an ideal space for staff to use when a larger workspace is required for event preparations (e.g., charging PA systems, working on decorations, preparing traffic signs).

Tenant vacancies in the Center are considerable at this time, allowing for an opportunity to use the Building in new ways and to make some areas more functional as they come available.

In the best interests of the Center, all construction plans and work plans for the museum expansion must be submitted to Public Works for final review and approval

FISCAL IMPACT: None at this time. Room 3 could be used as a lease space in the future if tenancy rises and/or priorities change.