Cannery Clears Hurdle Toward Landmark Status

A controversial proposal to renovate a Wilmington pet food cannery into a restaurant and retail complex received a significant boost Wednesday when the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission voted to designate the building a city landmark.

The landmark status for the Heinz pet food cannery--which must be approved by the City Council--is important to Wilmington community activists, who are battling the Port of Los Angeles over the future of the building.

The cannery is expected to close Dec. 1., and port officials want to raze it to make way for an expanded equipment storage yard.

But community leaders want to preserve the 71-year-old cannery for inclusion in what will be Wilmington’s first commercial and recreational development near the waterfront. If the landmark status is approved, the port will be prevented from demolishing the building for at least a year.

“It’s an opening for us,” said resident Simie Seaman, who serves on a citizens committee that is planning the waterfront access project. “It’s part of our history, it’s part of the waterfront and it’s something that a lot of people are interested in. It’s a natural for the area.”

Wednesday’s decision caught port officials off guard.

“That is an understatement,” said port Deputy Director Dwayne Lee, when asked if he was surprised at the commission’s vote. Lee said he believes the building, which has been added to and has evolved over the years, has no architectural significance at all: “It’s kind of like the tree house in the kid’s back yard.”

But an aide to Los Angeles Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who requested the historic status, said commissioners declared the building a landmark because of its cultural, rather than its architectural, significance. Their vote was based on the canning industry’s historic importance to the Wilmington community and the port, said aide Susan Prichard.

Lee said port officials intend to find a way to “recognize the historical significance of the structure and at the same time realize our objectives.”

Although he said he could not provide specifics, he suggested that one means of complying with the ruling would be to document the historic significance of the cannery in writing and through photographs, to file the documentation in libraries or with historical societies and then tear the building down.

Such a solution, however, is not likely to satisfy the Wilmington residents committee, which has been pressing the port since last spring to include the cannery in the waterfront project.

“Forget it,” Seaman said. “We don’t want it in pictures. . . . That’s ridiculous.”