Commissioners reject Skechers building, but project likely to return
Boundary Place, looking east across Sepulveda at an existing Skechers office building. Skechers has acquired the building to the left. The Planning Commissioners expressed concern that the alley is too narrow for delivery trucks. Photo
The Manhattan Beach Planning Commission approved one of the buildings in a proposed Skechers office complex on Sepulveda Boulevard but temporarily rejected another, citing concerns about truck access to the building.
Commissioners voted 3-0 to certify necessary approvals for an office building at 330 S. Sepulveda, on the east side of the street but declined to do so for the proposed building across the boulevard at 305 S. Sepulveda. The commissioners said that the position of the 305 building’s loading dock on Boundary Place, an alley that marks a southern border with Hermosa Beach, raised safety and traffic concerns.
The setback for the shoe manufacturer, however, is almost certainly temporary. Each of the commissioners expressed gratitude for the project and expected a fix to be worked out by the time the project returns to the commission in March.
Commissioner Gerry Morton said his concerns regarding Boundary were “acute enough that I need a little bit more to move me to approval.”
“I’d like to come to a resolution on Boundary. I want to approve this project,” Morton said.
The new buildings in Manhattan will join several other properties the shoe manufacturer has in the area. A design center and executive offices just over the border in Hermosa received approval from that city’s planning commission last month.
The 305 project encompasses several existing buildings between Boundary and Duncan Avenue, while the 330 building is a Skechers office building that the company is seeking to expand. The loading dock at the 305 project was not included in the plans the company submitted several years ago. It was added in order to comply with Manhattan’s city code.
Commissioners noted that they had no jurisdiction over the Hermosa side of Boundary. Executives from Skechers said that the building is intended to serve as an office, not a distribution facility, receiving few deliveries. The only trucks likely to visit the facility, according to Skechers president Michael Greenberg, are FedEx and UPS trucks under 30 feet in length.
But both residents and commissioners were concerned that even the smaller-sized trucks could create problems. Resident Harris Bass, who lives nearby, compared a truck attempting to pull out of Boundary and onto Sepulveda to a car exiting a residential driveway onto a freeway. He added that trucks were likely to enter and exit through residential neighborhoods. When asked about the possibility that one truck trying to exit and another trying to enter could create a backup, project architect David Hibbert said “I don’t see that happening,” prompting exasperated laughter.
City staff huddled with Skechers personnel following the vote to discuss how to cure the Boundary problem. When the project comes back to the commission on March 14, the company may seek the commission’s blessing to jettison the dock and divert deliveries to an existing Skechers office building at 225 S. Sepulveda.
Along with the Hermosa project, the new buildings would add hundreds of new employees and more than 100,000 square feet of office space along the boulevard. Elected officials in both cities have sought to balance concerns about the impact of the new development on surrounding neighborhoods with the benefits bestowed by one of the region’s largest employers.
As in Hermosa, commissioners pointed out that concerns from nearby residents, especially over traffic and parking, could be even greater if another type of business, like a restaurant, were to fill the space. But the scrutiny of the Skechers project also revealed broader issues in Manhattan’s attempts to establish a vision for development on Sepulveda Boulevard.
Skechers acquired some of the parcels for the project nearly a decade ago, and the lots in Hermosa have sat vacant for years. Commissioner Stewart Fournier, addressing vacancies along Sepulveda, recalled a City Council-led “walking tour” of the highway several years ago, that revealed potential tenants in the area were bumping up against parking requirements. The only realistic solution, Fournier said, was undergrounding, which is financially out of reach for all but the largest and wealthiest of business.
“With the existing building, and these added on, let’s face it, we do have sort of an office district on Sepulveda, and that is a little scary at first. But if you look at the economics of it, retail is on the run. Do we just continue to let these parcels look the way that they are? I don’t think so,” he said.