Tonight Arcadia City Council will explore building a new $12 million City Hall after the proposal was shelved in 2009 for financial reasons. The existing City Hall is undergoing a $2.3 million renovation and remodeling that includes a new heating and air conditioning system, energy efficient windows, new wiring, carpeting and painting. If Council moves forward with new building, the existing one could be used as a community center.
The Los Angeles Conservancy graded local cities on their efforts to preserve historic buildings. Arcadia was deemed a preservation truant and received a report card grade of F.
A newly discovered geologic fault has quashed plans for a new gymnasium at Foothills Middle School that would have been shared with the City. The City and school district will now focus on building a gym at Dana Middle School.
The City Council approved demolishing the building at 19 1/2 Lucille Street after City inspectors alleged that it was plagued by health and safety code violations. Earlier article in Pasadena Star News May 8, 1993 p. A-5 with photo.
Arcadia officials approve expansion and seismic retrofitting plans for Arcadia Methodist Hospital. Expansion plans include a new five-story patient tower, a new ambulance bay, a larger emergency room and a larger critical care unit.
Egner Construction Company of Gardena will starting building second apartment in the city on West Huntington Drive. Earlier in January, the Egner Company took out a permit for a 21-unit apartment on Fairview Avenue. See hard copy of newspaper in Box 51.
Construction has begun on Arcadia Unified School District's $20 million Performing Arts Center. The 40,000 square feet, state-of-the-art facility is due to open in fall of 2012. It is funded by Measure I.
The Los Angeles Conservancy gave an F grade to Arcadia, Bradbury, Diamond Bar, El Monte, Industry, La Habra Heights, La Mirada, Monterey Park, Rosemead, Santa Fe Springs, Temple City and Walnut, in a report card of local cities. The cities were judged on whether or not they had an ordinance allowing designation of historic landmarks, how many landmarks are designated, if cities provide for implementation of the Mills Act and other criteria.
Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden will have its historic buildings upgraded and a new 5-year strategic plan is being drafted for the first time in many years. Among items to be improved are the roof replacement and stabilization of the Hugo Reid Adobe (aka Baldwin Adobe), the rehabilitation of the library, as well as roof replacements for the 126-year-old Queen Anne Cottage of "Fantasy Island" fame, and the Coach Barn. Mitchell Bishop, curator of the historic collections, said he plans to rehabilitate Baldwin Lake.
Denny's windmill spins again. The windmill atop Denny's at northeast corner of Santa Anita Avenue and Huntington Drive was designed by Harold Bissner as the template for Van de Kamp's Holland Dutch Bakery's coffee shop franchise. It opened in 1967 in Arcadia, the first of 15 built from his designs. Denny's bought the location in 1989. Denny's spent $100,000 refurbishing the windmill.
The Hugo Reid Adobe still stands in disrepair at the Los Angeles County Arboretum five years after preservation and restoration efforts should have started. At issue is whether it should be preserved as the Hugo Reid Adobe or reinterpreted as the Elias J. ("Lucky") Baldwin Adobe.
Plans for a new City Hall building have moved into a second design phase, after officials approved a preliminary design package and dedicated a five-month process to fleshing out further details.
Birth-tourism sites not easily detected.Terry Moore-Corse, a code enforcement officer in Arcadia has encountered three maternity homes in the past six years, most recently in 2009, when a resident reported "a lot of pregnant women" coming out of a house. Beyond building code and business license violations, there is nothing illegal about coming into this country to give birth, according to the U.S. State Department, which issues visas. Maternity tourism is a money-making cottage industry in which wealthy women from Asia pay anywhere from $25,000-35,000 to have American-born infants.
Monrovia's Aztec Hotel is showcasing fine art in its non-profit Aztec Art Center Route 66 Gallery. Visitors are not just from Monrovia, but from Pasadena, Duarte and Arcadia. A painting by Manuel Barillas is pictured. The hotel is owned by Kathie Reece-McNeill. The hotel was designed in 1925 by English architect Robert Stacy-Judd and was inspired by Mayan and Aztect structures. The building has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1976.
An ancient Chinese maternity tradition, from the Sung Dynasty (960-1275 AD), known as "Zuo Yue Zi," is translated as "doing the month."It refers to the care of a Chinese woman during the first month after giving birth. The practice is explained here by Wei-Chen Tung, a former registered nurse at Arcadia Methodist Hospital and now an assistant professor of nursing at University of Nevada, Reno. The practice requires new mothers to follow a strict diet and rest for 3-4 weeks following a pregnancy. Tung says a lot of Chinese women still practice this, so hospitals should be aware of this part of Chinese culture. Maternity tourists--women who want to come to the United States to give birth to a full-fledged American citizen, have given rise to businesses that cater to them, such as the maternity home that was shut down in the 1300 block of South Palm Avenue in San Gabriel on March 8. It had been 5 townhomes illegally converted into a maternity home.