LA on track to sell historic San Pedro bank building now known as the Croatian Cultural Center

Now, it may be facing another.

The long-vacant, two-story Croatian Cultural Center, 643 S. Pacific Ave., is on track to be listed and sold as “surplus property” by the city of Los Angeles, which acquired the building in 1997 at a cost of $450,000 to spare it from demolition.

The motion to sell came from Los Angeles City Councilmember Tim McOsker, and it is now making its way through the various levels of city approvals.  The City Council’s Government Operations Committee, in fact, passed the motion on Tuesday, with an amendment specifying that it include a conservation easement for the facade of the building as a condition of selling the property.

McOsker, who has been consulting with the Los Angeles Conservancy about the building, said the easement would protect the front and likely the two sides of the building from changes.

The 8,000-square-foot structure at Pacific Avenue and Seventh Street features carvings and other historical architectural touches reminiscent of the town’s earlier days.

McOsker’s proposal to sell the property will now go to the full City Council, but it could take until the end of the year before the property will be ready to list for sale, McOsker said.

Tuesday’s committee approval, though, provides a go-ahead for L.A.’s General Services Department, along with the city attorney, to “take all necessary steps and prepare all required documents” to put the parcel’s sale into motion.

“My sense of this is it’s an important building to conserve,” McOsker said in a Tuesday phone interview. “Internally, it has to be renovated, and the city will not have the financial wherewithal to do that.”

It appears as if the only chance for the building to survive is for the city to sell it, he said.

“Having a vacant building for 10 years is not good for the surrounding business owners,” McOsker added.

The building, formerly the Security First National Bank, was completed in 1928 or 1929, according to Mona Dallas Reddick, president of the San Pedro Historical Society. A postcard the society possesses shows the historical interior of the bank before it was remodeled in 1960 for a more “modern” look. A merger with Pacific National Bank, Dallas Reddick said, resulted in the name being changed to Security Pacific National Bank by the late 1960s.

After the bank shut down, the building was spared from possible demolition when the city bought it in 1997 for $450,000. The plan was to move the local office of the Croatian consulate general of Los Angeles there. But that idea never came to fruition.

It was also to become a hub for the town’s Croatian community, offering a meeting space, art exhibits, musical performances and other community events.

Former Councilmember Rudy Svorinich Jr. led the drive to save and purchase the building for a Croatian cultural facility in 2016, believing it would be a new asset, helping revitalize the downtown San Pedro shopping district and standing as a tribute to one of San Pedro’s largest immigrant communities.

That’s how the building became known as the Croatian Cultural Center. But it was used only sparsely after several years and eventually wound up being shuttered.

Most recently, in 2023, it was announced that rehabilitation efforts would be relaunched so that the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce, the consul general’s office and a startup San Pedro museum would have space inside the building. But the costs were deemed prohibitive.

The building, McOsker said, had been vacant for 10 years when he took office in 2022.

“We went in and looked and significant damage had been done to the property, which was a shame,” McOsker said. “We began talking about who would use it and what would it cost to bring it up to code and make it usable.”

Several years before McOsker came into office, the estimate was $2.9 million.

“Leasing or renting the property out would not have been feasible for the city,” McOsker said, even in prior years when there weren’t so many budget challenges. “So we began talking to some community members about, ‘What if we put it up for sale?’ I think owning a property gives a greater incentive to someone and greater access to capital to borrow to finance repairs.”

With the building sitting mostly vacant for years, vandals, squatters and thieves have taken a serious toll on it, despite the city’s efforts to keep it boarded up and locked. When he came into office, McOsker said, “a group of folks” had been living there.

“This is just an indication that the city has not been a good steward of this property,” he said.

Before that, in 2019, according to police security reports, vandals stole copper pipes, metals and coils from the condenser unit on the building’s roof. That ruptured water pipes and caused extensive flooding in the building.

On Sept. 30, 2019, the city’s General Services Department secured the building and reported that the first and second floors had significant water damage, tarnishing the walls, tiles and ceiling. Trash, clothing and bedding were removed from inside the building and toilets were unplugged. Carpets, hard floors and the attic were also damaged.

But even after that cleanup effort, which resulted in the building being boarded up, with the water meter, main electrical service panel box and circuit breakers being shut off, damage continued to occur.

The vacant building, McOsker’s motion said, “has become a nuisance to the community. The property has continued to have ongoing maintenance and security issues that place a burden on City resources. As there are no plans to upgrade this facility or use it for any other City purpose, the public would be best served by the disposal of this property through the City’s Surplus Property process.”

Preserving the outside of the building, however, should be a priority in any discussion of a sale, McOsker said.

“I want to maximize protection of the historic fabric and beauty of the building,” he said.