Supporters Say City Council Moving in the Right Direction on YWCA

[Updated] Housing advocates on Monday said the City Council is headed in the right direction on the YWCA and Civic Center project.

“This is an important step in the right direction,” said Anthony Monousos of the Greater Pasadena Affordable Housing Group. “We will continue to advocate and pray until every homeless person in our city is housed.”

The City Manager said last week that the council wants to see some form of affordable housing as part of any development in the city’s civic center.

Mermell said city staff is working as instructed.

After the group unfurled a banner outside the YWCA building on North Marengo Ave. they prayed near the busts of Jackie and Mack Robinson.

The city is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. Rents on some units go for $3,000 for a two-bedroom apartment. Efforts to pass rent control initiatives have failed so far.

Affordable housing has become a key talking point in the March 3 election.

Currently there are five proposals for development projects at the site and a nearby lot owned by Pasadena Water and Power.

Affordable housing has become a major talking point in the March 3 election.

The proposals include a 125-150 full-service Four Seasons hotel at the YWCA site along with 25 luxury residences at the former Water and Power site by Carpenter and Company of Boston.

Continental Assets Management in Arcadia proposed a four-star 167 hotel room, either a five-story 120 room market-rate unit building or a six-story 139 affordable housing unit is proposed at the Water and Power site.

A proposal by Edgewood Realty Partners from nearby South Pasadena would see a 164-room boutique hotel operated by Palisociety and a 70,000 square foot, five-story office building is proposed for the Water and Power site.

New Orleans-based HRI Properties LLC would create a 179-room hotel, of which 165 rooms would be in a new 83,000-square-foot building adjacent to the YWCA. Their proposal didn’t specify what the Water & Power site would be used for.

The Ratkovich Company with the National Community Renaissance in Los Angeles is proposing two alternatives.

The first would call for rehabbing the building for office space. The second option calls for the rehabilitation of the building with construction of a new 59,000 square foot office building, or rehabbing the building and building a 142-room hotel.

On the PWP property, permanent supportive housing or permanent supportive housing and 15,000 square feet of leasable office space is proposed by Ratkovich.

City Manager Steve Mermell would not reveal if any of the developers have yet been eliminated from the process.