Malibu Presbyterian relies on kindness of neighbors. Businesses at Malibu Colony Plaza suffer under reconstruction efforts.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
While many Malibu residents who lost homes in the fires of last fall juggle the stark realities of insurance-speak with maintaining mortgages while looking for affordable rentals during the rebuilding process, Malibu merchants who suffered losses face other needs in their recovery.
Two Malibu public establishments severely affected by the fires in October were the Malibu Presbyterian Church and Malibu Glass & Mirror. Both institutions, each serving the community for more than 25 years, were completely destroyed.
The church, with a congregation of several hundred, in addition to its regular services had provided outreach programs and pre-school and after-school classes six days a week in their facility located on Malibu Canyon Road.
“Other Malibu organizations have been wonderful about helping us continue to offer our programs,” Church Pastor Greg Hughes said. “We have a college group of 200 to 300 that now meets at the Salvation Army Camp in Tapia Park. And our pre-school has been operating from the Malibu Jewish Center. We were even working from the Malibu Performing Arts Center for a while. But we don’t have facilities to get other programs up and running yet.”
At the moment, the church holds services in Webster Elementary School’s Auditorium. “We have two Sunday morning services and turn-out has been great,” Hughes said. “We’ve maybe even seen an increase.”
But like many in Malibu, the church has discovered the limitations of its insurance policies and is faced with the costs of upgrading a facility that was 50 years old, even while scrambling for alternative facilities to conduct church business.
“We are interviewing architects right now,” Hughes said. “We definitely need some new features like handicap accessibility and bigger rooms. We’re still assessing our loss and wrestling with insurance. But there will be a shortfall between what was covered and what it will take to rebuild. We’ll open our capital campaign soon.”
Church elder Jim Ludwig said they are already placing modular buildings in the church parking area on Malibu Knolls to house the nursery school.
“The synagogue people have been wonderful but we are ready to get back onto our own space,” Ludwig said. “It will be hard. Let’s remember that the church constructed in 1950 only cost $60,000 to build. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
Rebuilding from scratch
Malibu Glass & Mirror lost not only its showroom, but “a ton of inventory” as well, owner Gerald Lemonnier said.
“Fortunately, we had contracts for various projects and were able to jump back in with our suppliers,” he said. “We’ll be operating from a construction trailer on-site starting next week, but we’ll have to build our showroom from scratch. The city has been very helpful about our permits, so we’re ready to pick back up as soon as possible.”
Lemonnier said he anticipates business being spurred by residents who lost property in the November fires, once their permitting processes are completed and they start to rebuild.
Malibu Colony Plaza had several businesses affected by the October fires to varying degrees.
Houri Kharazi of First Bank said, “We’re still under construction. Water damage to walls shared with our neighbor has put us back a month or so. I think our customers are just happy we are open even with the construction so they don’t have to drive out of Malibu. But the vault was perfectly safe!”
Other establishments still struggle.
“I would love to say we are back on track, but we are still limping,” Laura Doughty, of Tola Life Spa, said. “When the winds pick up, people come in to relieve stress, but there is still so much construction going on around the plaza that I don’t think the general public even knows we are open. There has been little communication from property management, so I have no idea how long scaffolding and fencing will be up.”
The extensive scaffolding and green fencing required for the plaza’s rebuilding efforts seem to have had a negative influence on other colony businesses.
Acencion Perez, manager of Starbucks, said the scaffolding blocking the coffee shop was “just killing business.”
“Fortunately, we don’t seem to have any leaks from the rain,” she said.
However, construction workers on the roof are very evident to any customers who might be in the shop.
“We can only guess how long it will take them because we don’t hear anything from the management company,” Perez said.
Cindy McAfee, property manager for the Colony Plaza, was out of town and unavailable for comment.
Meanwhile, affected businesses are improvising.
“Even the Methodist and Christian Science Church have offered us space options,” Ludwig of Malibu Presbyterian said. “It truly shows you how good things can come out of the bad.”
Ludwig urged congregants to check on church rebuild progress at its Web site, www.malibupres.org. “Unfortunately, in many respects, we’re just a virtual church right now,” he said.
“The only thing we could recover was a shed storing pre-school tricycles,” Hughes said. “But everyone’s response has made me appreciate our community that much more. I already loved Malibu for the scenery, but the people are what make Malibu great.”