By Jason Islas
Lookout Staff

July 18, 2011 – Santa Monica residents turned out in droves Wednesday to have their say about the future of the Bergamot Station Art Center.

Project Manager Peter James leads a discussion about the future of Bergamot Station. Photo courtesy of Transportation Planning Associate Peter Dzewaltowski.

City planners invited the community to the workshop to share ideas about changes to the center when the Expo Light Rail and related developments transform the area around the galleries.

“The more we can hear from people, the better,” said Community & Strategic Planning Manager Francie Stefan.

Stefan added she was thrilled to hear the passionate commitment to Bergamot Station coming from the audience of some 100 residents gathered in the spacious Pier 59 Studios West Building.

“How do we create an environment that is both supportive of the arts and of a mixed-use, transit oriented neighborhood?” planners asked residents.

More specifically, audience members were asked for their ideas on how to open the space to “subsidizing” ventures – businesses that bring in profits to support establishments that require subsidies, like art galleries and the center's art museum.

After an introduction by city staff, residents broke into clusters to share their thoughts.

City officials divided the conversations into two categories: projects that need subsidies and projects that would subsidize them.

At every table, residents were adamant that Bergamot Station not lose its character as an “artistic epicenter.”

Since it will be the first stop in Santa Monica, Bergamot Station needs to be representative of the city, some said.

More communal artistic spaces, in the form of artist lofts and group workshops where artists can collaborate were on some wish-lists.

Bruria Finkle, a local artist, curator and board member of Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. said she would like the City to expand Santa Monica's art museum to 25,000 square feet with the influx of money coming its way as the area gets developed.

“The enterprises coming in are multimillion dollar enterprises,” said Finkle. “And the community should enjoy it.”

Former Planning Commissioner Gwynne Pugh said he would like to see a small, inexpensive and “funky” hotel in Bergamot Station to encourage nightlife on the site.

Restaurants and pubs were suggested by many as a way of making the area economically viable. They could have performance spaces in them as a way of tying the new businesses to the art scene.

Wednesday's workshop was the second of three workshops hosted by city planners to elicit community involvement in development plans in the area around the future Expo Light Rail Station near the eastern border of Santa Monica.

The first workshop was held in February and dealt with Bergamot Transit Village ("Santa Monica’s Love/Hate Relationship with Bergamot Plan," February 22).

The third workshop will cover the Mixed/Use Creative District north of Bergamot Station and Bergamot Transit Village, and will be held this fall.

Bergamot Station was formerly a train stop and light industrial center along a Southern Pacific Railroad line that ran from Downtown Los Angeles to the coast.

The City purchased the land in the late 1980's and many of the original buildings have been refurbished and used as art galleries.

Bergamot Station will once again be used as a train stop after the Expo light rail project is completed in 2015.

For more information about community workshops and the future of Bergamot Station, visit www.bergamotplan.net

"The more we can hear from people, the better."
   Francie Stefan