City management's agendizing memo mentions future "discussion" -- but no commitment by the buyer/developer or the City -- to incorporate public access to the Jergins Tunnel in the project design. The agendizing memo states: "Activation of the Jergins Tunnel will be discussed during the due diligence and entitlement phase of the development. Restoration and redevelopment of that portion of Victory Park, which fronts Ocean Boulevard, is also an integral part of the proposal."

LBREPORT.com opens our Amnesia File regarding the Jergins Tunnel below.

[Scroll down for further.]

The former Jergins tunnel, currently sealed up but potentially accessible from south side of Ocean Blvd., included an arcade filled with specialty shops and was originally built to let crowds safely cross Ocean Blvd. to reach the once-thriving Pike amusement area.

While San Diego and Santa Cruz cleaned-up and revitalized their beachfront boardwalk-style areas and preserved the classic CA beachfront experiences that tourists desire (and Disney tried to re-create inland), LB city officials paved-over LB's downtown beachfront and begat mainly mundane development. (Satellite photos also indicate that LB city officials first configured Shoreline Dr. in a way that would doom the Pike's crowd-drawing roller coaster, see LBREPORT.com coverage here.)

City Hall also accommodated construction of what is now the Renaissance Hotel, sealing off the tunnel's northern connection to Ocean Blvd. and leaving only the southern portion of the tunnel intact.

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In October 2007, urban promotional experts Ryan Smolar and Rachel Potucek managed to secure public access -- for one day -- to the sealed southern portion of the Jergins tunnel as part of their creative "University by the Sea" downtown event. This gave the public the first opportunity in decades to see what remains of the tunnel...and the event drew large crowds and considerable public interest (LBREPORT.com 2007 photos below.)

Oct. 28, 2007 LBREPORT.com photo

Re-opening the tunnel was a major draw for the one-day event. The event drew a large crowd of people eager for an opportunity to enter the long-entombed, tiled pedestrian tunnel.

Oct. 28, 2007 LBREPORT.com photo

University by the Sea co-organizer Smolar (right in photo below) estimated that 1,200 to 1,500 paid attendees entered the tunnel over just the few hours of the event.

A few days after the event, Mr. Smolar went further...managing to discover and uncover two underground rooms (restrooms) adjacent to the historic walkway. Mr. Smolar saw the two rooms identified on maps obtained from City Hall's Planning and Building Dept...and like some urban archeologist he and others like minded set out to locate them.

"We discovered this basically by looking at old maps that hadn't been seriously examined for years," Mr. Smolar told LBREPORT.com at the time, adding that he'd initially "poked around and found a possible entrance to the bathroom behind a piece of plywood."

Mr. Smolar noted, "We now know that in addition to the tunnel itself, the city has two rooms with additional underground square footage."

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Six years earlier in 2001, then-2nd dist. Councilman/Vice Mayor Dan Baker received Council support to ask the City Manager to prepare a report on the possible restoration and use of the tunnel and a "task group" made up of various City departments reviewed existing documents and toured the tunnel to determine its physical condition and propose options for reuse. Those options included reestablishing a passageway connecting the Renaissance Hotel to a proposed hotel at the old Jergins Trust site; a pedestrian passageway without connection to either the Renaissance or the proposed hotel; host to new institutional or commercial activities such as historical preservation, arts, restaurant, meeting area or vendor shops; passive viewing of the landmark from only the south entrance.

The task group estimated the costs to modify the tunnel for public safety and ADA requirements would be $750,000 or more, but didn't investigate whether any funding was available through historic preservation grants; as there was no appropriation for the costs in the FY02 budget, the City Council received and filed the report with no additional action.

After the October 2007 University by the Sea event showed public interest in the tunnel, 2nd dist. Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal (who took office in mid-June 2006 after Baker abruptly resigned) agendized a November 20, 2007 item, asking that the City Manager perform a comprehensives study of potential adaptive reuses for the historic Jergins Pedestrian Subway tunnel (Pine Ave. @ Ocean Blvd.), pursue grant funding for the study and return to the Council within two months with an outline for performing the study and pursuing the grant money.

As Vice Mayor Lowenthal prepares to exit office under term limits in mid-July 2016, there's no mention of grant funding in the now-agendized city management request that the Council approve "sharing" (giving up) half of the proposed new hotel's room tax for twenty years. The now-agendized item seeks Council approval for a transaction that would enter escrow and close the sale...with only a promise of future discussion during the buyer/developer's due diligence and entitlement phase -- and no commitment by either the buyer/developer or the City -- for restored public access to what remains of the Jergins Tunnel.

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