Carlsbad to get bids for barn project

By: BARBARA HENRY - Staff Writer
Sinkhole repairs also planned | Tuesday, March 18, 2008 10:29 PM PDT ∞

CARLSBAD -- The city will seek bids for a barn restoration project at Leo Carrillo Ranch Historic Park and will attempt to solve a sinkhole problem in a residential neighborhood, the City Council decided Tuesday.

The sinkhole, discovered March 1, is in the backyard of two homes on Cameo Road near El Camino Real and Chestnut Avenue. Believed to have been caused by a damaged storm drain, the sinkhole was 6 feet deep and 10 feet long when city crews conducted their first assessment of the site in early March.

Repair work is estimated to cost $250,000. Plans call for work to start next week and continue over several weeks, said Sherri Howard, an associate engineer with the city.

Four residential properties will be involved, she added. One of the property owners urged the council Tuesday to make sure that this repair work also fixes other drainage issues in the neighborhood.

City officials said they will look into the situation. This is one of several storm drain-related troubles that Carlsbad has experienced in recent years, including one that caused a much larger sinkhole near a mobile-home storage yard on Tamarack Avenue in early January.

The council also agreed at Tuesday's meeting to seek bids for a restoration project at what was once the ranch of former movie star Leo Carrillo. The property on Flying LC Lane near Melrose Drive opened as a city park 2003.

The city has set aside nearly $400,000 to improve the old barn's foundation, walls, roofing and exterior stairs, among other things. If the bids come in as the city hopes, the repair work could begin this summer and conclude in the fall, city officials have said.

A board member of the Friends of Carrillo Ranch group told the council that he was thrilled the project was moving forward after years of lobbying for it.

"These facilities were needed the day the park opened nearly five years ago," board member Tony Carter said. "They're still needed and we have not been bashful about saying so."

He and others with the group have called this project the first part of a two-step process. Ultimately, they want the city to transform the barn into a visitors center/theater where some of Carrillo's movies could be shown.

Carrillo acted in dozens of films, but he's perhaps best known for his role as Poncho in the 1950s TV series "The Cisco Kid."

-- Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.

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