The Pasadena Unified School District will conduct a year-long environmental impact report on the beloved tower at Eliot Arts Magnet Academy to determine whether the structure is safe to remain or will need to be demolished, its superintendent said.
PUSD Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco announced the plan at the Altadena Town Council meeting on Tuesday, May 19, reversing her earlier announcement at the council’s Land Use Committee meeting on May 5 that the district determined the building was unsafe to remain standing after consulting with “architects, structural engineers, and the Division of the State Architect.”
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Blanco apologized to the Altadena Town Council, and said she learned one day after the Land Use Committee meeting that the district’s facilities master plan determined the tower to be a possible historical landmark, which enables further environmental reviews.
“I want to sincerely apologize for any grief I caused anybody that was attending the Land Use meeting,” Blanco said. “I thought that being honest about what we knew to date would probably be the best approach, which it definitely turned out not to be because nobody at that meeting was ready to hear what we were saying on our report from our structural engineers. I just really am sorry that it was taken that way.”
The district will now conduct the environmental review process, which could take up to one year, in addition to the three years it will take to rebuild Eliot Arts Magnet Academy, said Michael Dunning, Pasadena Unified School District director of facilities, maintenance, operations and transportation. A significant public comment period will be part of the review process, he added.
If the tower is deemed structurally unsafe, the district may explore building a replica of the tower with easier public access to view the city from the top, Blanco told the council, an advisory board to L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.
Councilmember Justin Mahramas questioned the district’s process of using the environmental review process to determine if the building is a historical monument and called for more transparency from the district.
“The EIR itself, though, isn’t the mechanism for telling you whether something is structurally sound,” he said. “It’s not the mechanism for telling you whether something is historic. Those things are done by consultants and then they are put into the EIR to tell you whether there’s an impact under [California Environmental Quality Act].”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Sam Mulick is a correspondent with the Southern California News Group.