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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Desert Bloom In the Valley

Anthem Blue Cross has long had one of the most prominent office complexes in Warner Center, not necessarily for the size of its buildings as much as for its lush, nearly 13-acre lawn. But that turf was a hog, consuming millions of gallons of water each year, a luxury the health insurer decided was no longer worth the expense during the state’s drought. These days, that once-green turf has been transformed into a largely brown expanse of mulch, dotted with 1,185 carmel creeper bushes, 178 crape myrtle trees and 475 sage leaf rockroses, all drought-tolerant species. The plants will take months, even years to fill in – but the company was so proud of the massive project that it held a press conference last month to show it off to the media. “A lot of people look at something this size and think, ‘Oh my God how did you guys do it?’ But it’s a fairly simple process,” said company spokesman Darrel Ng. “You get a design, you work with the LADWP, get a landscape contractor and then start the installation.” In fact, the project experienced some hitches, including a time crunch, a seasonal-planting miscalculation and public complaints about its appearance before it was completed. But there is no second-guessing at the insurer, a Thousand Oaks-based subsidiary of Anthem Inc., one of the country’s largest health insurers. The company was awarded a $2 rebate for each of the 554,000-square-feet of lawn it replaced. The project’s $1.1 million total cost was funded by Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s California Friendly Landscape Incentive Program, an extension of the Metropolitan Water District’s SoCal Water$mart Rebate Program. What’s more, the company anticipates that the xeriscape will reduce its water consumption by about 12 million gallons annually, cutting its LADWP bill by $65,000 in the process. There’s also another $20,000 in annual savings from reduced landscape maintenance. Michelle Figueroa, LADWP spokeswoman, said Anthem was one of nearly 70 companies that have gone through the program this year to date, a huge leap from the eight commercial customers that replaced turf in 2009 in the program’s first year. “Water consumption habits have changed and the turf rebate program has definitely been one of the more popular programs for us,” she said. Due to the huge demand, just last week, the water district raised funding from $100 million to $450 million, enough to replace 172 million square feet of grass. Low upkeep The project had its origins in 2013 when Anthem decided to test some drought-friendly landscaping on a 10,000-square-foot patch of land behind its offices. The company liked the aesthetics and easy maintenance of plot so much it decided to expand it to cover the entire property. “I think it really goes down to the look,” Ng said. “It’s very low upkeep, especially when it gets established. You can really see how nice (the landscape) can look with an alternative to grass.” The landscape architect on the project was Guy Stivers at Stivers & Associates Landscape Architects in Tustin. United GLI Inc., an Indio company that has decades of experience installing and maintaining xeriscape, was the contractor. “We’re in the desert so we irrigate to a desert format,” said Tony Cunzio, president of United GLI. The five-month-long transformation began last August with what is called the “grow-kill” phase. Every acre was sprayed with a chemical that killed the grass, allowed to regrow and then killed a second time. The turf was then rototilled, turning the dead grass over until it became well-fertilized soil. Next, a drip irrigation system was installed at every designated plant location. Each irrigation assembly drips a gallon of water to the roots of the plant in 40-minute waterings a few times a week. The crews followed by planting the new shrubs and spread 3 inches of mulch ground cover. Cunzio said his company worked under a tight schedule. “Once the project was approved we had a limited window to complete the job which forced us to start installation in October, which is not ideal because it required us to do the planting in the winter,” he said. Indeed, when December rolled around, the west Valley was hit with a severe frost that damaged roughly 10 percent of the young plants. “Because the plants were not yet established, they were vulnerable,” he said. The contractors replaced the damaged plants in March, waiting until they were sure another frost would not hit. Public perceptions During the transition, Anthem also encountered a few non-technical wrinkles. The company received minor complaints from passersby worried that the dead grass was a potential fire hazard. So it reached out to the Warner Center Association, a business group, and the Warner Center Homeowners Association, to fill them in on the project. Despite the hiccups, Anthem also has replaced 22,000-square-feet of turf at its Thousand Oaks office early this year, which was covered by the state rebate program, and plans to do a smaller lawn at its facility in Newbury Park. Because of the Anthem property’s size and prominent location in Woodland Hills, Ng said other area companies are now considering their own turf replacement. “We have talked to a fair amount and I know that they’re watching the progress of this and how it turns out before they’re willing to invest,” he said.

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