Dreams up on blocks
City wants historic house out of Playhouse District parking lot
By Nathan Solis 07/10/2008
An affordable housing developer who set out to save a historic building but ended up leaving it on blocks in a city-owned parking lot in the Pasadena Playhouse District for almost a year has been given until September to make a move.
The 81-year-old Evelyn Boadway Apartments once served as a Fuller Theological Seminary dormitory, but was slated for demolition last year to make way for a multimillion-dollar campus expansion effort.
Hoping to convert the venerable structure into low-income housing elsewhere in Pasadena, developer Antreas Hindoyan bought it in August for $10 and then covered the cost of moving the structure — an effort which required cutting it in half — from Fuller to the lot at El Molino Avenue and Union Street, where it has stayed free of charge.
With parking scarce at times in the area, the building has become a source of frustration for many, including Playhouse District Association Executive Director Erlinda Romo.
“It’s been an inconvenience. There have been complaints from the residents, and a lot of the employees get [complaints from customers],” said Romo, who believes many potential customers have been kept away because they can’t find a place to park.
Late last month, Acting Assistant City Manager Stephanie DeWolfe told Playhouse District Association members that city officials have given the developer a Sept. 1 deadline to remove the building.
The 28-year-old Hindoyan, a member of the family that has owned and operated Burger Continental Restaurant on Lake Avenue for nearly four decades, remains optimistic that the building will eventually offer affordable apartments (with monthly rents of $600 to $900) on South Mar Vista Avenue — and even “go green” with the inclusion of solar panels.
“The trouble that I have gone through to bring this project to fruition is taken in stride with the comforting knowledge that a piece of Pasadena is not only being protected, but it is also morphing into a cutting-edge, green building,” he said.
Hindoyan hopes the city will help fund the project through its Affordable Housing Trust Fund, created from fees paid by developers in lieu of meeting city requirements to include affordable housing units within their projects.
That decision is ultimately up to City Council members, said Public Information Officer Ann Erdman, who confirmed Hindoyan has sent the city “a letter of interest” about such funding but has not yet returned an official application.
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