Service center to relocate

Monday, March 1, 1999

CENTER: Moving office

to Broxton will promote visibility, lower rent costs

By Christine Byrd

Daily Bruin Contributor

Plans are in the works to relocate Westwood's Community Service Center, which offers crime prevention and information services for the community, from Westwood Boulevard to Broxton Avenue.

The center is run by community service officers and provides crime prevention presentations, incident reports, bicycle registration, a lost and found, tourist information and bus schedules.

If the lease is approved as expected, the center will move by late spring to its new location on the ground level of the parking structure at 1036 Broxton Ave. The new location will place the community center closer to the middle of the Village and save money for the Westwood Village Community Alliance (the official name for the Business Improvement District), which funds the center.

"The location is in the heart of the Village, closer to a lot more merchants," said Patty Evans, operations director for the alliance. "Their response and presence should be better there."

The Broxton parking structure, which is owned by the city department of transportation, has four retail spaces available on the ground level, one of which will be the center's new home.

When it was time to renew the three year lease on the Westwood Boulevard location, the alliance proposed and considered new lease terms.

"The suggestion came up to move it to the parking structure and everything just came into place," Evans said.

The lease is currently going through the administrative process. The city attorney plans to submit a draft by the middle of next week, at which point the transportation department will review and approve it before sending it on to the alliance, said Lynne Ozawa, a transportation department official.

The city is giving the group very favorable terms and the alliance will be saving a significant amount of money by leasing from the city, Evans said.

"When you have a city building, then it's good to have a city facility in it," said Rochelle Ventura, an official at councilman Mike Feuer's office.

Because there is no rent control in Westwood, renting from a private owner carries the risk of two- or threefold rent increases, whereas leasing from a city building, such as the Broxton parking structure, does not carry this risk.

The move to Broxton will be beneficial because it will be a permanent home for the community center, Ventura said.

The center would occupy 900 square feet of retail space and cost $1 per month per square foot in rent. The alliance would also be responsible for paying a small monthly maintenance fee to the city and installing the heating ventilation and air conditioning, with the city providing $10 per square foot toward that cost.

The space is only slightly smaller than the current location, but will still be staffed with one clerk from the community service center, with one UCPD officer and two LAPD officers periodically stopping in.

The smaller space will not interfere with the center's ability to do a good job, said Nancy Greenstein, director of community services for university police. In fact, she believes Broxton will be a better location.

"For us, Broxton is more wide open," she said. "They're looking for visibility."

But Broxton has had less traffic lately, since stores such as Aahs! moved to busier locations and others went out of business. The relocation of the center is part of the plan to revitalize the street.

"There is going to be a lot of development in the area in the future," said Officer Ricardo Bolanos, the UCPD officer who works at the center.

Broxton was redesigned a year ago for heavy foot traffic as part of the $4.5 million Westwood streetscape program.

Bollards - posts sunk into the street which can be raised to close the street off to automobile traffic - were installed just south of the parking structure and north of Kinross Avenue so that Broxton could be limited to foot traffic for special events.

"We're exploring having a second Farmers' Market there on Sunday mornings," said Evans, of the community alliance.

The alliance is discussing this option with the fire department and creating layouts for such a plan.

"If all is successful, we're looking to start it in June," Evans said.MICHAEL COOPER

The Westwood Village Community Center is being relocated.

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