Riviera Hall Lutheran Church and School are in early planning stages for construction in Redondo Beach.
Love your neighbors
Riviera Hall Lutheran Church and School are in early planning stages for construction in Redondo Beach.
RHLS School Expansion Project - Timeline and Updates
Last Updated: 09-26-2024
RHLS School Expansion Project - Timeline and Updates
General status and summary:
RHLS school officials are exploring and hoping to further plans to expand the RHLS school, which shares the same property as the Lutheran Resurrection Church at 330 Palos Verdes Blvd., Redondo Beach.
What is the Lutheran School and Church Expansion Project?
It’s an effort primarily being driven by the School, to expand student body enrollment which means that they need additional classrooms and they also want a proposed gymnasium.
Enrollment went from 175 students in 2017 to 240 in 2021 due to Pandemic, and has continued to expand to 272. School leaders have voiced the need to come to a decision to continue expanding to and supporting the student growth to upwards of 298, which is 70% over 2017 levels of enrollment.
Is the Expansion Project possible without impacting neighbor views, area traffic, and noise from the added student body and proposed construction?
No. There will be impacts.
Torrance City regulations limit building height to ensure that existing neighbor views are generally not impacted. But neighbors need to be vigilant to ensure that plans are done within regulatory guidelines, observing the overlay, and considerate to the impact on our community.
The School believes that there may be ways to accomplish their goals with minimal or no impacts to surrounding neighbors. Neighborhood Representatives Anthony Valentino and Tim Donahue do not believe this is possible with current designs and goals, and are working as closely as possible with the School and Church stakeholders to keep the project from impacting neighbors. Alternatives have been suggested including, adding an additional site nearby that may house high school or 8-12th graders, maintain the school serving students within it’s capacity, partnering with other nearby private institutions to facilitate additional student needs.
Two main stakeholders: the School and the Church
It’s important to understand that there are two main entities involved: the School and the Church. These two entities function separately in many regards, but are also bound together on some level legally, fiscally and organizationally.
The School is run primarily by it’s Board, with principal Kelly McCabe, and board member April Deitrich being principal leaders.
The Church is run by it’s Board, with Pastor Ken Johnson, John Heim (current board President) and Julie Jacks (current board Vice President) as principal leaders.
Survey and feasibility study have been completed and analyzed
A survey was distributed to school and church members in early 2024 in order to gauge support for potential school expansion. The survey was not distributed to the surrounding neighbors.
In late May 2024, the School and Church employed a firm called Fellowship Development to analyze the study and present findings to the school and church community.
The general findings were that there was support in many regards for expansion, there were also concerns about how expansion would occur, given the small property parcel, which is already limited in space, and that a capital fundraising campaign would need to be undertaken in order to secure funds for expansion.
Fellowship Development group also recommended that communication between Church and School needed to be improved before proceeding further, and that the surrounding neighborhood community should be actively included in the planning process.
No consensus at this time regarding scope of Expansion Project
The School and Church are having trouble agreeing on future plans, and whether to expand the school student body and what building should be considered. There are internal organizational and communication challenges that they are working out.
- Exploratory architectural drawings have been created
- No plans are being submitted to City yet
- Finances are not available to expand at this time
Meanwhile, the School group has employed an architectural firm to create preliminary 3-D drawings of additional classrooms in an additional gymnasium to help further the conversation.
To be clear - no plans have been submitted to the City of Torrance at this time. The school group has repeatedly told us that nothing is in stone and nothing specifically is moving forward aside from exploratory and feasibility discussions and 3D imaging of potential building plans.
Our understanding is that a considerable fundraising effort would need to take place to raise funds for the multi-classroom and gymnasium expansion. Funds are not available internally.
Regarding traffic in the neighborhood
Dan Dietrich from the Church is working on this issue and has told us “we are working on a solution to minimize the traffic issue though the neighborhood. The current school year ends on June 12, but we hope to have something in place by the start of the next year in September.”
Julie Jacks has told us that “school and preschool passed out a drop off and pick up driving plan to use different neighborhood streets based on the first letter of their last name. There has been a lot of discussion about showing respect and caution when driving in our neighborhoods.”
Current Status:
At this time, plans for large expansion are on hold or moving slowly, as school began in September and time is limited due to school efforts.
However, there are 3 very tiny rooms (total of roughly 130 sq ft, at a cost of $250k with permits) that were being built this year and which utilize existing building footprint, and do not change any visible neighbor rooflines.
In late summer, the building of the 3 small rooms was attempted without obtaining permits, and was subsequently reported by neighbors and stopped by the City.
Neighborhood representatives are in contact with School and Church leaders to monitor developments
Neighborhood representatives Anthony Valentino and Tim Donahue continue to stay in contact with the principal leaders of Church and School regarding any new developments.
The School and Church have been very good about generally engaging and including Anthony and Tim as the Expansion Project develops. Anthony and Tim have taken part in a handful of meetings so far with both Church and School officials over the course of 2024, and there is an email thread established for ongoing communication as needed.
As the surrounding neighbor representatives, we would like to thank Pastor Ken, Julie Jacks, Dan Deitrich, April Deitrich, and Kelly McCabe in particular for their continued communication and inclusiveness.
Get Involved
About Riviera Hall Construction Plans
Riviera Hall Lutheran Church & School is in early planning stages to build. And at this time, all we can confirm is what was has been shared, including images above and a Riviera Hall flyer which indicates: new multi-purpose gym, classrooms and an event space. We know these plans as originally written would increase traffic due to desire to increase the size of school, and increase noise from planned "venues that will support weddings, paid-for events, and more". As a community we are united in voice to RHLS - specifically desiring they respect the hillside overlay, fix the traffic issue, and reduce the noise.
Many of us have attended RHLS, sent our children to RHLS, and see other ways RHLS can achieve their business goals without negatively impacting the neighborhoods. The teachings at RHLS specifically highlight community involvement - please love your neighbor.
We care about our community
We care for our community - which includes Riviera Hall Lutheran Church & School (RHLS). We also expect RHLS cares about the community - which includes the residents. We have established regulations to assure our overall safety and quality of life.
We are centralizing communications for the Riviera Community Residents through a Community Communications Lead, please use info@rivierahall.com to route any questions to Riviera Hall respectively.
We hope RHLS can continue to Love Thy Neighbor.