Memorial Park Neighborhood Plan

The City of Santa Monica is planning for areas adjoining new light-rail stations. The Memorial Park light-rail stop at 17th Street, one of three stations in the City, lies between the densifying downtown to the west, a creative arts district at Bergamot to the east, two large hospital complexes to the north, and the Pico neighborhood and Santa Monica College to the south. The goal for the MPNP is to direct change for this formerly industrial area adjacent to an active recreation park towards low-scale, live-work, and mixed uses to conserve existing high-skill jobs and attract new residents, local-serving retail uses, and 21st Century work. Additionally, the plan will enhance transit use to reduce dependency on automobiles.

JKA, leading a consultant team of transit planners, street designers, infrastructure experts, and economists, is facilitating public workshops, meeting with stakeholders, and presenting to commissions and boards to develop a community-supported approach for district change. Emerging urban design concepts include incentivizing the adaptive reuse of existing industrial buildings to foster job retention and growth, developing district parking facilities to reduce the cost of projects, limiting the size of ground floor retail uses to provide for a greater mix of local business opportunities, design standards that establish transitions between new construction and residential neighborhoods to the north, and realization of a cross axis of multi-purpose pathways and bikeways at the station stop intersection of 17th Street and Colorado Avenue that incorporates cycle-tracks for bicyclists and bulb-outs at cross streets for pedestrian safety.

A draft of the plan will be presented to the public and decision-makers in the fall of 2015 with adoption anticipated in 2016.