Re “Historic Status Is Sought for Closed Culver City Ice Arena”
Now that the Cultural Affairs Commission has agreed with a request to grant “significant historical” status to the temporarily shut down Culver City Ice Arena, what happens?
The noise you may have heard was a shrug.
Answers are awaited.
As an advisory body, the Cultural Affairs group last evening agreed with the Culver Ice Foundation’s suggestion to recommend the “significant” label for the rink.
This will be forwarded to the City Council, and no one knows how that vote will turn out.
If the polling is positive, the changed status probably will make life more complicated for property owner Michael Karagozian.
The 52-year-old building has been forcibly out of commission for more than 10 weeks, and it does not appear on the ledge of turning on the lights anytime soon.
Mr. Karagozian told the newspaper this afternoon that Arena matters are at a “standstill.”
City Hall sources said a favorable decision by the City Council “gives an additional element to whatever plan he puts forward.
“If Mr. Karagozian decides he is not going to use it as an ice rink,” one person said, “he has to do a zoning change or use change that will trigger Planning Commission and, ultimately, City Council action.”
Still another source applied a curious twist to the story:
“The cultural significance, if any,” she said, “comes from the use of the building, what went on on the inside, not the design elements. With due respect to the architect, it is a concrete building. Take off the ice skating lady, and you wouldn’t know it was an ice rink.”
