Readers of this blog will know that the hotel/conference center business plan originally released when the structure was planned to replace the Faculty Center did not make sense.
Since then, although UCLA has released conceptual hints about the hotel design and plan, no actual plan has been produced.
Below is what appears to be the schedule for the second coming of the business plan and other elements of the proposal:
March 27: Plan goesto the Regents for Budget Review. So far, thebusiness planis apparently still in preparation (!) and so it has not been released to the UCLA FacultyAssociation which made a Public Records Act request for it. It will be releasedbefore the March 27 date - but when is unknown. The project will use taxexempt financing. That creates a barrier to commercialactivities.
Draft EnvironmentalImpact Report: late April.
Public hearing:Mid-May
Final EnvironmentalImpact Report: late July or early August
Rumors are floating around about a change in the possible bond funding arrangements for the proposed campus hotel/conference center. Possibly, alternative bonds - presumably not tax-favored muni bonds - would be used, thus allowing commercial use of the hotel. That step would put the hotel in direct competition with Westside commercial hotels, of course, raising the level of opposition from them. Since the hotel would still be subsidized - free land, no property tax, donor gift - such competition would be controversial. Would local hotel taxes be paid? Parking for a full service operation? Traffic flowing into campus for a full service operation?
Commercial operation and a change in the financing model would be a departure from the vague description released last fall. Would there be other such departures? A commercial operator (Hilton, Sheraton, etc.) as was once envisioned for the original hotel proposal that would have been where the faculty center now stands? Contract employees rather than UCLA employees?
Rumors are just that at this point - rumors - but they could be spiked with the release of the business plan which is still not available. As readers of this blog will know, the Faculty Association has filed a public documents request for the plan, so far without success.
CurbedLA reports that in the aftermath of the controversyover demolishing the UCLA Faculty Center for a hotel/conference center (nowproposed to be located elsewhere), the LA Conservancy is continuing efforts toprotect the building. In part it isdoing so by holding events there – see below. In part it is trying to get a designation of the Faculty Center as anhistorical resource – also see below. The photo shows tea on the opening day of the Faculty Center in 1959.
WESTWOOD: The LAConservancy's Modern Committee is giving out its third annual set of ModernMasters Awards tonight, to honor "Major contributors to SouthernCalifornia mid-20th Century architecture." The recipients tonight areVictor Cusack, James Delong, WA Sarmiento, and Edward Fickett. They'll alsohave a special tribute to the recently-deceased Robert Burman and an appearancefrom Harry Gesner to pick up the award he won last year. The awards are being given out at ModCom's holiday party at UCLA's FacultyCenter, which was designed by Austin, Field and Fry in 1959. According to apress release, "The Faculty Center is a rare example of residentialranch-style architecture applied to a civic building and is highly unusual fora university and public institution setting. The post-and-beam structure wasrecently a preservation issue, but is no longer threatened with demolition. TheConservancy is currently working on a California Register of HistoricalResources nomination for the building."
It’s been over a week since Faculty Association Executive Director Susan Gallick offered to come over and get the business plan for the proposed hotel/conference center. As readers of this blog will recall, the Faculty Association has submitted a Public Records Act request for the plan and so far received no plan or any related documents.
Underneath any enterprise, there has to be a sound business plan. So can we peel back the pretty (but “conceptual”) drawings of the hotel and have the plan revealed? Perhaps this video will help set the mood:
The trade association representing hotels on LA's Westside have been voicing concerns from the beginning about the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center. Yesterday, the association put its concerns in writing (fax actually). Obviously, the hotels are worried about loss of business from a publicly-financed hotel. They note the loss of tax receipts to the City of LA (and cc: local city councilman Paul Koretz).
As this blog has repeatedly noted, there is no available business plan for the revised hotel/conference center plan. The hotel owners point to this absence.
The UCLA Faculty Assn. has submitted a Public Documents Act request for the plan. So far, no plan has been produced - which likely means there isn't one, or at least there isn't a plan that's ready for prime time. As earlier blog posts have noted, the campus architect said at the scoping meeting on the hotel that the images shown on the website for the proposal are "conceptual," not actual.
You can read the hotel owners' letter/fax of concerns at:
See prior posts for the Faculty Association's request for the business plan of the proposed hotel/conference center.
12/4/11
Dear Ms Felker,
Thank you for your response to my request for public records.
Since it might take 8 weeks or more to provide me with the information I requested, and since the chancellor has already mentioned that there is a written study by a consultant, would it be possible for me to stop by Murphy Hall in person and pick up that report? That way I would be able to get some part of the information requested in a more timely manner.
Then, when the rest of the information, including all responsive documents, is ready, you could mail it to me. Or, if you notified me by email that it was ready, I could also stop by and pick it up on campus. That would save the cost of postage.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Susan Gallick Executive Director Faculty Association at UCLA
California Public Records Act CPRA (Attorney General’s Summary): Excerpts
In enacting the CPRA, the Legislature stated that access to information concerning the conduct of the public’s business is a fundamental and necessary right for every person in the State…
Records may be inspected at an agency during its regular office hours. The CPRA contains no provision for a charge to be imposed in connection with the mere inspection of records. Copies of records may be obtained for the direct cost of duplication, unless the Legislature has established a statutory fee…
To the extent reasonable, agencies are generally required to assist members of the public in making focused and effective requests for identifiable records…
A person need not give notice in order to inspect public records at an agency’s offices during normal working hours. However, if the records are not readily accessible or if portions of the records must be redacted in order to protect exempt material, the agency must be given a reasonable period of time to perform these functions.
When a copy of a record is requested, the agency shall determine within ten days whether to comply with the request, and shall promptly inform the requester of its decision and the reasons therefor. Where necessary, because either the records or the personnel that need to be consulted regarding the records are not readily available, the initial ten-day period to make a determination may be extended for up to fourteen days. If possible, records deemed subject to disclosure should be provided at the time the determination is made. If immediate disclosure is not possible, the agency must provide the records within a reasonable period of time, along with an estimate of the date that the records will be available. The Public Records Act does not permit an agency to delay or obstruct the inspection or copying of public records…
Under specified circumstances, the CPRA affords agencies a variety of discretionary exemptions which they may utilize as a basis for withholding records from disclosure. These exemptions generally include personnel records, investigative records, drafts, and material made confidential by other state or federal statutes. In addition, a record may be withheld whenever the public interest in nondisclosure clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure. When an agency withholds a record because it is exempt from disclosure, the agency must notify the requester of the reasons for withholding the record. Finally, when a written request is denied, it must be denied in writing…
EXEMPTION FOR PRELIMINARY NOTES, DRAFTS AND MEMORANDA (Gov. Code, § 6254(a))
Under this exemption, materials must be (1) notes, drafts or memoranda (2) which are not retained in the ordinary course of business (3) where the public interest in nondisclosure clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure. This exemption has little or no effect since the deliberative process privilege was clearly established under the balancing test in section 6255 in 1991, but is mentioned here because it is in the Act.
…In order to withhold a record under section 6255, an agency must demonstrate that the public’s interest in nondisclosure clearly outweighs the public’s interest in disclosure. A particular agency’s interest in nondisclosure is of little consequence in performing this balancing test; it is the public’s interest, not the agency’s that is weighed…
The UCLA Faculty Association has filed a formal request for the business plan of the proposed hotel/conference center which so far has not been released. Since at the scoping meeting on the project, the architectural plans were described by the campus architect as merely "conceptual," the Faculty Association is concerned that the business plan may also be in a preliminary stage.
In any event, below is the formal request and acknowledgment from the university official handling such matters.
================================
Faculty Association at UCLA
P.O. Box 33336
Granada Hills, CA 91394-3336
Nov. 11, 2011
Gene Block
Chancellor, UCLA
2147 Murphy Hall
Campus 140501
Dear Chancellor Block,
On behalf of Dwight Read, Chair of the Faculty Association at UCLA, and the Executive Board, I am making a request for information as part of the California Public Records Act, Information Practices Act of 1977.
Please send a copy of the business plan for the proposed $152 million conference and guest center to be built at UCLA to the FA as soon as possible.
The FA understands that the business plan has not yet been submitted to the Regents for a vote early next year, but that is even more reason for the faculty to see what the industry experts have said about the proposed conference center before the Regents take a vote.
The address is:
Faculty Association at UCLA
P.O. Box 33336
Granada Hills, CA 91394-3336
Or email the plan to: ucfa@earthlink.net
Thank you for your attention to this request.
Sincerely,
Susan Gallick
Executive Director
Faculty Association at UCLA
= = = = = = = = = = = =
From: UCLA Public Records
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:13:11 -0800
To: FA at UCLA
Subject: PRR 2012-139: Acknowledgement of Your Public Records Request
Dear Ms. Gallick,
This letter is to acknowledge your request under the California Public Records Act (CPRA) dated November 11, 2011 for the business plan for the proposed UCLA Conference and Guest Center.
Records Management & Information Practices (RMIP) is notifying the appropriate UCLA offices of your request and will identify, review, and release all responsive documents in accordance with relevant law and University policy.
Under the CPRA, Government Code Section 6253(b), UCLA may charge for reproduction costs and/or programming services. If the cost is anticipated to be greater than $50.00 or the amount you authorized in your original request, we will contact you to confirm your continued interest in receiving the records and your agreement to pay the charges. Payment is due prior to the release of the records.
Due to our current volume of public records requests, we anticipate it may take up to eight weeks to fulfill this request. If we are unable to close your request within this time, we will provide you with a status update by January 9, 2012. Although the University will be closed from December 22, 2011 – January 3, 2012, RMIP will strive to complete your request without additional delay. We thank you in advance for your understanding should our processing be delayed.
Should you have any questions regarding the status of your request, please call or email UCLAPublicRecords@finance.ucla.edu and reference the request number above in the subject line.
Sincerely,
Aimee M. Felker,
Director Records Management & Information Practices,
Corporate Financial Services
Editorial Note: Eight weeks should be long enough to gin up a business plan, if there isn’t one, as opposed to a “conceptual” plan.
Yours truly has obtained some documents related to the proposed expansion of a campus hotel at UC-Davis. The documents are more complete than what we currently have for the revised UCLA proposal and include a consultant’s market competition study. You can access these documents by scrolling down in this blog entry.
The consultant hired by UC-Davis, as might be expected, indicated that Davis-area commercial hotels would not be adversely affected by competition from the campus project. However, the City of Davis seems to disagree and worries about the loss of room tax revenue diverted from the commercial hotels and about general harm to City development plans. Hotel owners in the Davis area – operating under the name “Save Our Hotels” – have filed a detailed protest with the campus administration.
The UC-Davis hotel - shown above - operates as a Hyatt. It is much more modest than the proposed UCLA project. Currently, it has 75 rooms which rent for roughly $85/day (about half the proposed UCLA price). The proposed expansion would increase the number of rooms to 127 (about half of what UCLA proposes). Interestingly, however, the Davis proposal is for 127 parking spaces for 127 rooms (about the same number UCLA proposes for double the number of rooms).
At the scoping meeting on the UCLA project held last Monday, the UCLA architect described the various architectural and traffic plans for the UCLA hotel/conference center as “conceptual,” i.e., incomplete and uncertain. Yours truly suspects that the reason there is no business plan for the UCLA project currently available is that whatever plan there may be at this point is also at a “conceptual” stage.
Local hotel owners on Monday did voice concern and indicated that they foresaw a loss of business. And there were concerns about the original UCLA plan from our local city council representative. The UC-Davis experience suggests that once more information (a business plan) becomes available, we may see developments similar to what has occurred at UC-Davis.
We posted the audio of the “scoping” session on UCLA revised hotel/conference center proposal that was held on Nov. 14. There were repeated concerns raised about traffic. The plan evidently calls for all traffic to enter the campus through Westwood Boulevard, southern entrance from the Village.
But there is a limited turn-around space in front of the proposed hotel/conference center which must also accommodate various municipal bus lines that terminate there, hired buses that will pick up and leave off hotel/conference guests, and other drop-off vehicles, as well as the entrance to the project’s own parking. Comments from the public suggested that accommodating so much traffic in such a small space was impractical.
But maybe there is an answer, courtesy of Westwood’s Hotel Palomar. From yesterday’s LA Times:
Hotel lets guests walk for discount
A hotel in Westwood is rewarding guests who defy the stereotype that Angelenos don't walk. Hotel Palomar last month began rewarding guests who walk at least 10,000 steps a day with a 50% discount on their next hotel stay. To record the achievement, the hotel hands out free pedometers and walking maps to guests who sign up for the Walk This Way package.
The package, which will be offered until June 30, also includes a $20 credit for food and drinks at the hotel. The deal is also available at the Hotel Palomar San Diego. For the average person, 10,000 stepsis about five miles of walking. It's a target that first gained popularity in Japan in the 1960s as a daily goal to remain healthy and active.
The Hotel Palomar Los Angeles suggests that guests who wish to walk 10,000 steps circle nearby Holmby Park or the UCLA campus…
Bottom line: No cars or buses are needed. Guests can walk to the hotel/conference center (and get a discount on the already cheap $180 room rate - a Palomar style 50% walking discount would cut their room cost for future events to $90). Just a modest suggestion!
As the song goes:
Just to be helpful, here are the Google-map walking directions from LAX to UCLA:
Los Angeles International Airport 1. Head north on World Way toward West Way 0.6 mi 2. Turn left onto Sky Way 0.3 mi 3. Slight left toward Davidson Dr 230 ft 4. Turn right onto Davidson Dr 417 ft 5. Turn right onto Alverstone Ave 364 ft 6. Turn left onto W 96th St 315 ft 7. Continue onto S Sepulveda Blvd 2.3 mi 8. Slight left onto Sepulveda Blvd 1.0 mi 9. Turn right onto Jefferson Blvd 0.6 mi 10. Turn left onto Overland Ave 2.2 mi 11. Slight left to stay on Overland Ave 1.8 mi 12. Turn right onto Santa Monica Blvd E 0.1 mi 13. Turn left onto Manning Ave 1.1 mi 14. Turn right onto Hilgard Ave 0.2 mi 15. Turn left onto Westholme Ave 0.1 mi 16. Turn right toward Portola Pl 128 ft 17. Turn right onto Portola Pl 0.1 mi 18. Slight right onto Charles E Young Dr S/Portola Pl 469 ft 19. Turn left 0.1 mi 20. Turn left 72 ft University of California, Los Angeles
This evening (11-14-11), a public hearing was held on the scoping report on the proposed hotel/conference center - primarily an environmental review. See earlier posts on this blog. Most speakers were representatives of neighborhood groups and representatives of local hotels. One retired and recalled faculty member spoke. Major themes were the lack of a business plan, incompleteness of architecture and design features, parking, and traffic issues. The UCLA architect repeatedly stressed that the various designs shown on PowerPoint slides were conceptual, not final. Some of those who made comments noted that it was difficult to evaluate a project without final design plans or a business plan. Hotel owners pointed to exemption from local taxes as unfair competition. They supported a conference center but not a hotel and expressed doubt that the project as described could break even. They were dubious about the notion that the project would generate business for them rather than reduce it.
Some speakers noted that they were pleased that UCLA found a new location that did not involve demolishing the Faculty Center. However, there were concerns about parking issues, traffic issues, and exactly how the hotel traffic could be made to integrate and accommodate the municipal bus station which is right across from the proposed project.
The hearing lasted just under an hour. You can hear the audio of the event using the option below:
Alternative links to the audio in three parts are at: Part 1
As a prior post on this blog noted, apparently the powers-that-be have a business plan for the new version of the hotel/conference center but – according to a letter in the Daily Bruin from the chancellor – they are reluctant to release it until some future Regents meeting. See http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2011/11/chancellor-says-we-need-patience.html
Perhaps the request below will encourage adjusting the timing:
As a prior post on this blog noted, apparently the powers-that-be have a business plan for the hotel/conference center but – according to a letter in the Daily Bruin from the chancellor – they are reluctant to release it. Perhaps the request below will encourage adjusting the timing:
Sent by email:
Faculty Association at UCLA
P.O. Box 33336
Granada Hills, CA 91394-3336
Nov. 11, 2011
Gene Block
Chancellor, UCLA
2147 Murphy Hall
Campus 140501
chancellor@conet.ucla.edu
Dear Chancellor Block,
On behalf of Dwight Read, Chair of the Faculty Association at UCLA, and the Executive Board, I am making a request for information as part of the California Public Records Act, Information Practices Act of 1977.
Please send a copy of the business plan for the proposed $152 million conference and guest center to be built at UCLA to the FA as soon as possible.
The FA understands that the business plan has not yet been submitted to the Regents for a vote early next year, but that is even more reason for the faculty to see what the industry experts have said about the proposed conference center before the Regents take a vote.
Chancellor Block says the hotel/conference center business plan - which is the only way to determine the viability of the plan and whether it will end up costing the campus money - can't be made available now for reasons of prudence. See the letter below. So I guess we are expected to be patient until it is prudent.
Letter to the Editor, Daily Bruin, 11/9/11
The proposal to build a $152 million conference and guest center on campus is not one UCLA made in haste. In fact, it is supported by $50 million from alumni Meyer Luskin, a highly successful businessman, and his wife, Renee. The Luskins directed us to use their gift for a project they also believe will succeed and enhance our campus in new and important ways. We could not be more excited or grateful for their generosity and vision.
Although it would not be prudent for us to release our business plan before it is submitted to the regents, who will give it a thorough public review before voting on the project early next year, it was developed by top industry experts who did an exhaustive analysis. The fact is that Westwood hotels are largely populated by people having business with UCLA, as evidenced by the fact that the few rooms we currently offer on campus are typically booked solid.
The suggestion that this project takes funds away from our academic mission is incorrect. It does not touch tuition or state funds and is supported entirely by the donor-directed gift and bonds specifically for its construction. In fact, $10 million of the Luskin gift is designed to help academic departments host conferences that involve and benefit our students. Meanwhile, our fundraising efforts continue to demonstrate UCLA’s commitment to supporting students, with more than $104 million in private gifts raised through the Bruin Scholars Initiative, including $20 million in scholarships through the Dream Fund.
Keeping UCLA competitive among our peer institutions by attracting major conferences to campus goes to the very heart of our academic mission – extending our research and ideas into the community in a way that helps solve society’s problems. Great universities realize their commitment not just to their students but to the communities those students will someday shape.
It is... commendable that the administration has listened to faculty input about the hotel and conference center and made changes to their plans.
When UCLA administrators release the business plan for the hotel and conference center, they would do well to continue to keep their ears open to skepticism and criticism.
The campus community needs to be confident that this project will help – not hurt – UCLA.
The report for the scoping review on the newly revised hotel/conference center is now available. Earlier posts on this blog have noted the absence of the report in view of the upcoming session about it to be held Monday, Nov. 14, 7-9 PM, at the Faculty Center. But the report is now online.
In case you haven't noticed the signs near the Westwood Blvd. entrance to UCLA, the health center is going entirely no smoking on Nov. 17.
It's good to have no smoking. But as yesterday's post pointed out, no scoping is not so good. We are still awaiting the scoping report on the new hotel/conference center plan which is supposed to be discussed at a public meeting next week.
A session on the proposed and revised hotel/conference center will be held - where else? - at the UCLA Faculty Center. See notice below. RSVP by Nov. 9 to mrule@support.ucla.edu See earlier posts on this project.
