Meeting date: October 13, 2026
The City Council on Tuesday authorized the city manager to negotiate and sign a lease with Santa Monica Brew Works for the vacant restaurant space at 256 Santa Monica Pier, the former Rusty’s Surf Ranch site, which has had no tenant for about two years.
Pier lease with Brew Works
Under the terms City Manager Oliver Chi described, Brew Works would open a fast-casual restaurant with a surf, skate and beach theme and live music, seven days a week. The lease would run five years, with two five-year options. Base rent would be $5 per square foot with a 3% annual increase, which Chi said would average about $215,000 in the first full year. The city would provide up to $750,000 for tenant improvements, waive permit and plan check fees, and repair the building’s base systems before handing it over.
Former Rusty’s employees would have a chance to be hired, Chi said, through a 30-day interview period, written offers and a 90-day introductory hiring period. He said that language matches what the city offered California Roadhouse, the operator the council approved in April. Chi said talks with Roadhouse ended at the end of June after requests to remove the pier’s longstanding labor peace provisions and to change the employee retention terms. He said the Roadhouse deal had set base rent at $6.50 per square foot, with a $100,000 first-year waiver and up to $625,000 in city improvement funds.
Chi urged the council to approve the lease and pointed to how long the building has sat empty.
Councilmember Ellis Raskin moved the item and Mayor Caroline Torosis seconded. Raskin said he understood the lease terms to be substantively equivalent to the worker retention requirements in the municipal code, and that the council was taking no position on the staff report’s comments about those ordinances beyond what their text says. Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Zwick asked whether the retention rules matched the earlier lease, and Chi said they did.
Councilmember Lana Negrete said she had heard from people asking why other local businesses did not get to compete, and that this lease differs from the earlier one. Chi said the pier leasing guidelines allow a flexible process and that the Pier Corporation was notified before the item came to the council.
A research analyst with Unite Here Local 11 and a union member urged the council to enforce the pier worker retention law in the lease.
What happens next: Chi said staff will finish the lease without bringing it back to the council. No signing or opening date was given.
One-year realignment plan update
Chi told the council the city is a year into the Realignment Plan, which set aside $60 million in reserves. He said fiscal year 2025-26 ended $7.3 million better than projected, with the city using $26.7 million of reserves instead of the $34 million expected.
The item asked the council to move forward on a rent registry for roughly 15,000 apartments not covered by rent control. Chi said the city would contract with 3Di for two years, start registration in January 2027, and charge $52.35 per unit. He said the city hopes for at least 50% compliance within two years. Torosis noted that landlords can pass up to 50% of the fee to tenants, except where pass-throughs are not allowed.
On the school district, Chi said the city’s roughly $12 million annual payment is set to end June 30, 2027, and that the council could choose to continue it with offsetting cuts. He said staff would return at a March budget session.
Chi described where staff stands if Measure ES does not pass.
Councilmember Barry Snell moved the staff recommendations other than the downtown parking and Zoox items. Chi also described two Metropolis parking pilots at no cost to the city: new entry and exit systems at parking structures 1 and 9 and the main library garage, and curbside valet at Arizona Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, Thursday through Sunday, with a soft launch in mid-November. Chi separately sought authority to negotiate a license letting Zoox stage about 150 robotaxis at city parking sites, which he said could bring in roughly $500,000 a year. Snell recused himself from the Metropolis pilots and Councilmember Dan Hall from the Zoox license.
Everything the council did
Consent calendar: Torosis said the consent calendar included license agreements with the Austrian Olympic committee and the Living Library of Nature for beach and parking-lot use during the 2028 Olympics, and an ESPN broadcast hub on the Pier Deck and Sandbox South from Jan. 15 to Feb. 23, 2027. The calendar also covered a Pearl Painting contract of up to $750,000 over five years, according to the staff report; a $695,300 increase for Enterprise Automation, according to the staff report; a $150,000 increase for Revel Republic, according to the staff report; and a no-bid purchase order of up to $1,011,803 for breathing apparatus from Allstar Fire Equipment, according to the staff report.
Grant (4B): Councilmember Natalya Zernitskaya asked about data protections in a $49,895 federal justice assistance grant, according to the staff report. Interim City Attorney Heidi von Tongeln said the city objects to certain grant conditions, which a court order currently blocks, and will send a cover letter reserving its rights.
Pump contracts (4D): Hall moved to continue the Pumpman increases of $330,000 and $500,000, according to the staff report, to the next meeting because the Oaks Initiative form listed no principals.
License plate readers (4I): A parking enforcement administrator said the $700,000 system would be used only for parking enforcement, the city would own the data, and non-violation data would be purged after 30 days unless pulled for law enforcement.
Affordable housing fees (4C): Zwick recused himself because of his employment with the Housing Action Coalition. The staff report says the 0.5 percent adjustment would add about $2,366 per apartment in revenue compared with last year, according to the staff report.
Stanford Street map (4H): Zwick recused himself. Residents asked for a 30-day continuance to review public records. Negrete said she opposed approval and wanted to grant that request. Raskin said state law leaves the council little discretion on final maps like this one and that his review found no basis to deny it.
Minutes: Hall asked for corrected wording in the July 28 minutes (4M). Zwick read the Sept. 8 Vision Zero motion into the minutes (4O), covering diverters on Michigan and Washington greenways and proposed design speeds. The Sept. 22 minutes (4P) passed with ranked-choice round tallies added at Hall’s request.
Off-site affordable housing (10A): Snell and Zwick recused themselves. Negrete said she opposes diverting affordable housing off-site and prefers more mixed-use housing in projects.
Zoning cleanup (12A): Zwick recused himself. Raskin asked staff to keep equity in mind when writing objective standards for where on-site affordable units go, and Torosis agreed.
Great Park conservancy (16C): The council approved by voice vote a study session in spring 2027 on a conservancy for the park planned at the Santa Monica Airport site. Hall said the session would leave other funding tools for later.
Other: Negrete asked about using discretionary funds for HAWKEFEST fees and said she would bring back more information. Chi said the venue fee was $31,000, with $13,000 and change going to the city. Interim City Attorney von Tongeln said no reportable action was taken in closed session.
