Arcadia City Council has gone on record as supporting the building of a new city hall that would be built on the other side of the Civic Center property. Out of three options presented by city manager Bill Kelly, the council consensus was for a new building at a cost of $6.6 million and adjacent to Huntington Drive West.
The Pasadena Showcase House of Design features an Arcadia home designed for Lawrence and Josepine Garat Wilcox Barker and built over two years in 1941-1943.
University of Southern California (USC) teacher Sam Watters' two-volume book "Houses of Los Angeles 1885-1935" features 700 or so photographs of splendid Los Angeles homes. Twenty-two of the seventy-five houses listed come from Pasadena, Altadena, South Pasadena, San Marino, Arcadia, and La Canada Flintridge.
Construction begins on Anoakia luxury housing development, on the former site of Anoakia, Anita Baldwin's mansion, on the corner of Baldwin Avenue and Foothill Boulevard in Arcadia. The Anoakia Mansion was demolished last August to make way for 31 homes to be built by Hover Development Inc. of Newport Beach. Anita Baldwin, daughter of Lucky Baldwin, lived there until her death in 1939. It was used as a girls' school from 1941 to the late 1970s. The new housing development is 19 acres.
A home built by the Barker family of Barker Brothers fame will be the Pasadena Showcase House of Design. Designed by architect Roland Coate in the early 1940's, the house sits on a large corner lot in the Upper Rancho area of Arcadia.
A bus shelter will be built on the west side of the Arcadia Public Library. The shelter will be Arcadia Transit's bus stop. Benches and forty trees will be added.
Pasadena's Lighthouse Christian Store on Lake Avenue closed its business earlier this month, due to tough competition from bookstores like Amazon and big box stores like Costco, Sam's Club and Target. Lighthouse still has locations in Long Beach and Orange, but their stores in Glendale and Arcadia both closed in recent years.
The City Council voted unanimously to expand design review for single-family homes citywide. It is the latest effort in the fight against boxy mansions being built in Arcadia. The review board thinks Asian families like the big houses and the Asian families say they do want to fit in with the community.
Demolition permits have been approved and the project of building new homes where the Anoakia mansion stands is now underway. Artifacts from the mansion have been given to the Arcadia Historical Society and the Arboretum.
Ed Huang, an architect who works as a senior planner for the city of Los Angeles, gives a tour of his "green" home in Arcadia. His house is a model of energy efficiency, using solar panels and other environmentally and ecologically friendly design elements. Huang had been Arcadia's planning commissioner from 1992-2002.
Arcadia City Council rejected objections filed by Los Angeles County and declared a redevelopment district for South Arcadia. The district, which covers business properties along Las Tunas and Live Oak, will be operated as a non-contiguous part of the Arcadia downtown redevelopment district. The City Council declared the area does suffer from both economic and physical blight, and hope to spend $12 million to upgrade the district.
Pasadena Junior Philharmonic Committee has selected an Arcadia estate as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design. It was designed by Roland E. Coates, Sr., for Lawrence and Josephine Garat Wilcox Barker of Barker Brothers Furniture fame.
Arcadia City Councill will look at possible changes in the city code on floor area ratio (FAR), lot coverage, and design review for single-family homes. FAR refers to the combined floor area of buildings on a lot, compared to the size of the lot. Arcadia has a lot coverage rule that single-story homes can cover 45% of the lot and 2-story dwellings 35%. Arcadia currently has a citizen-run design review effort within homeowner associations in northern parts of Arcadia, but no citywide system.