City Finally Replaces Center Ruined by Quake

More than six years after the Northridge earthquake destroyed the Granada Hills Recreation Center, the new center will be dedicated Friday by the city of Los Angeles.

The 14,000-square-foot building includes a gym, a stage, an exercise and ballet room, two meeting rooms, staff offices and restrooms. Since the earthquake, the park staff has worked out of a rented trailer.

The $2.9-million project was funded through Proposition K, by which voters in 1995 approved spending $750 million for park improvements over 25 years.

“We are in the midst of recycling the largest park system in the world,” said Steve Soboroff, mayoral hopeful and the president of the city parks commission, which oversees the work. “We have 212 fully funded projects under construction, just completed, or in the design phase.”

The city broke ground on the project in July 1998 and was scheduled to open the center nine months later. But it took two years to complete, and the $2.3-million construction budget swelled by $550,000. The overruns were mostly the result of a major redesign deemed essential by the Department of Water and Power.

The project has not been without controversy. Patti Friedman, president of the Northeast San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce, said the construction was mismanaged.

While Friedman said she is thrilled that the center is finally opening, she was troubled by the construction delays, the cost overruns and what she called the indifference of parks and recreation staff members to input from residents, including herself. Parks officials failed to return her repeated phone calls, Friedman said.

“This is one of the first major projects out the door, and it was fraught with problems,” Friedman said. “It was a building that should have been completed in nine months and it took two years.”

But Leslie Deeds, a Granada Hills resident who also served on the citizens oversight committee, said she thought the department did a great job.

“It’s unfortunate that it wasn’t done in the time it was supposed to be done. It would be nice to have everything happen overnight,” Deeds said. “But it came out to everybody’s liking.’

The biggest problem the department has faced in implementing Proposition K was a shortage of project managers, said Robert Fawcett, the director of planning and construction for the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks.

“There wasn’t enough staff to administer the amount of project money we had,” Fawcett said.

The $550,000 in change orders for the Granada Hills project was high, amounting to 23% of the original budget, Fawcett said.

Another major Proposition K project is underway in Panorama City, where a former convalescent home is being transformed into the Mid-Valley Multi Purpose Center. In North Hollywood, a former police station is being rebuilt as the North Hollywood Multi-Purpose Center. Renovation work is also going on at the Canoga Park Junior Arts Center and at Shadow Ranch Park, both in Canoga Park.

Most of the Proposition K work is still in the planning stages.