Soccer Fields to Replace Barracks : Flores Presents Angels Gate Plan

Los Angeles City officials have unveiled a master plan for Angels Gate Park that would replace the complex of former military barracks now occupied by the California Conservation Corps and the Angels Gate Cultural Center with two soccer fields.

The plan, which is a draft and may be changed after a public hearing, also calls for new landscaping, picnic areas and other improvements.

The corps would be permitted to stay while the park is being developed but eventually would have to find a new home.

The cultural center would be moved to what one official said is the most beautiful spot in the park: atop a knoll with a view of the Pacific Ocean and the Los Angeles harbor. However, the center would have to construct its own building on the 3-acre site.

The plan for Angels Gate Park, which is at the southernmost tip of San Pedro, was presented Thursday morning by Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores and recreation officials during a joint meeting of Flores’ San Pedro Citizens Advisory Committee and a citizens committee studying the future of another local park, White Point.

The fate of the two parks is linked because a coalition of youth groups in San Pedro, complaining of a lack of athletic facilities, has demanded that the city put a sports complex at White Point.

However, in light of Thursday’s announcement, as well as a commitment Flores made last week to put two athletic fields in yet another San Pedro park, the chairman of the White Point committee said that it is unlikely that his group will recommend a sports complex for White Point.

The Angels Gate plan met with varying degrees of acceptance from those who have something at stake. Mike Lansing, who heads the youth coalition, said he did not want to “look a gift horse in the mouth,” but reiterated his demand for a sports complex at White Point.

George Beck, president of Angels Gate Cultural Center, said he was encouraged that the city set aside a place for the center, which maintains an art gallery and studio space for artists and offers classes to the public.

“The discouraging news,” he said, “is we’ve got to raise our own money. . . . If they raze the buildings before we have a chance to build, then it’s going to be difficult.”

Cisco Hunter, area manager for the conservation corps, said he knew all along that the federal government--which deeded the park to Los Angeles and is pressuring the city to develop it for recreation--would not permit the 76 corps members to continue living in the old barracks.

Ironically, the corps, which provides work for disadvantaged youth, likely will participate in the task of tearing down its own home.

“We put it together, and we’re pretty much going to take it down,” said Hunter. “We’ll enjoy it, just like we enjoy whatever other projects we’re doing.”

As for the future, Hunter said: “I feel very strongly that we’re going to be somewhere in the harbor area, if our councilwoman has anything to do with it.” Flores pledged Thursday to find a place for the group in the area.

There are no timetables set for implementing the Angels Gate plan. Flores announced that she and Mayor Tom Bradley, who also attended Thursday’s meeting, will name a task force within the next week to study and hold public hearings on the Department of Recreation and Parks proposal. Flores said the task force will report back to her in three months.

“If you’re unhappy with some or all of it, don’t despair,” Flores told the crowd, “because you will have an opportunity to tell us.”

The plan--not including any construction by the privately financed cultural center--carries a $1.7-million price tag, but city officials say they have only $650,000 to spend. As a result, the plan will be implemented in phases, and it will be up to the task force to recommend which parts of the park should be developed first.

At Thursday’s presentation, Joel Breitbart, assistant general manager of recreation and parks, said the city has enough money to tear down the cultural center and conservation corps buildings and develop the soccer fields.

However, he suggested that the task force consider options that would allow some of the buildings to remain standing. The city, he said, could build just one soccer field and use the rest of the money elsewhere in the park. That way, the cultural center and conservation corps could extend their stay in the military barracks.

The city intends to demolish 24 military buildings to make room for the two soccer fields, which would double as a baseball diamond and take up 9 acres. Three buildings in that area will remain: one for a field house, one for restrooms and one for the park’s staff.

Elsewhere in the park, a building would be left for an American Indian cultural center, and the building currently being used as an all-purpose recreation center would also remain. The plan also calls for a new historic monument--there are no specifics yet--to be included in the park, as well as the picnic area.

In all, the master plan calls for the demolition of 33 of the 40 buildings that remain from the park’s days as a military installation. Four buildings currently occupied by a youth hostel would come down, and, like the cultural center, the hostel would be allocated space--2 acres--but would have to put up its own building if it wanted to remain in the park.

“We’re trying to take down as many as we possibly can,” said Georgiann Rudder, who heads the Pacific region for the Department of Recreation and Parks. “We’re trying to take an old fort and make it into a park, and there’s no point in having a lot of old run-down buildings.”