Laguna lurches into the 21st century this Monday with the closure of Forest Avenue to cars to make way for a pedestrian plaza. This will be the single most impactful improvement Laguna has made for our quality of life since we turned Main Beach into a park. The psychic benefits and community fostering of a real town square, where we can mingle with our neighbors on a clean, quiet, tree-lined setting with outdoor dining and entertainment in perfect weather, will amplify everything that is great about living here.
And for the skeptics who are concerned over the lack of parking, that issue can easily be remedied with the new parking lot concept conceived at the Village Entrance by Planning Commissioner (and freaking Renaissance Man) Jorg Dubin. Yes, the cat is out of the bag that a Planning Commissioner actually took it upon himself to do some urban planning without asking permission because, well, he’s a Planning Commissioner. And he conceived of a brilliant way to save and put the historic Digester Building to work as the anchor architectural element of a tasteful, recessed, mission-style parking garage.
Yes, it’s time to revisit a parking structure that can help alleviate our chaotic downtown circulation problem. And while it was voted down in 2014, back then it just was a four story monolithic eyesore that resembled a WalMart more than a tasteful homage to Laguna’s architectural heritage. And we weren’t pondering closing downtown streets either. But now we are. And a parking structure would make anything possible, because the majority of people in this town want to see more pedestrian zones, because more cars coursing through downtown is not the path forward.
Jorg didn’t do this for the fame and fortune. Though that would be nice. He did it because artists think in different conceptual ways than parking lot designers. And because as a resident he’s uniquely conversant with all our challenges – and opportunities.
But now of course will come the inevitable and endless vetting by our citizens, city planners, consultants, and the monumental squandering of time and money. When what we should be doing is saying, “thank you Jorg and when can we break ground?”
As for those concerned with the extra walking you’d have to do to reach downtown, may I propose that Jorg draw us a slow moving, old fashioned street car that runs from the garage straight down the middle of Forest or Ocean Avenue to our wonderful and by now famous Promenade, and the other way through our Arts District to the Sawdust? Something that would, in the immortal words of Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski, “really tie the room [downtown] together.”
Billy Fried, Laguna Beach
Wrap a sewer digester inside a parking structure facade at $50,000 per space and who will notice? Laguna after-all is home to masters of illusion.