West Hollywood, California (February 18, 2010) - Eastsiders’ dreams came true Tuesday night when the West Hollywood City Council approved the years’ in development plans to replace a decades old strip mall with a 10-story mixed-use complex of four buildings at 7300-7328 Santa Monica Boulevard. 
Trader Joe’s, seen behind the Movietown sculpture, has promised to Photo by WeHo News. |
The city gains a project that provides 32,300 sq ft of street-front neighborhood-serving retail space, 294 market-rate condominiums and 76 units of permanent affordable rental housing for senior citizens that promises to continue to fulfill the Eastside Redevelopment Plan.
Mayor Pro Tem John Heilman called the plans the realization of the late council member Sal Guarriello’s hopes for the Eastside. “This is the type of project he was envisioning, one that would, as he said it, take care of his seniors,” Mr. Heilman said referring to the project’s senior component.
The project, along with four other large developments planned for the immediate vicinity, promises to re-shape the city’s Eastside with what Mr. Heilman called a “high quality project.”
Eastsiders felt left out of the development game, he said, believing that approval of this project should further salve feelings “that everything got built over on the Westside and nothing was being done on the Eastside,” he said.
He said the Gateway project began the process, but now, “those feelings should go away. People will understand that we want everybody in the city to have a beautiful, upscale building in their backyard.”
Movietown Plaza rendering courtesy Casden Properties. WeHo News. |
A statement that gave council member John Duran cause to warn Eastside property owners, single family homeowners in the few blocks of east West Hollywood to the north of Movietown, especially, to “watch out.”
Those homeowners, he predicted will begin to see the same kinds of “pressures that we saw on the West and the Mid City to tear down single family homes and put up other structures,” he said.
“So be wary… West Hollywood east will soon become as desirable as West Hollywood west.”
Council member Lindsey Horvath expressed enthusiastic and uncritical support for the project, stressing the affordable housing component.
“I think it’s about effecting real change,” she said, expressing gratitude that the senior housing component, along with the retail element, will be built first.
Photo by WeHo News. |
Congratulating the developer, Cadsen Properties, on developing broad public support, as evidenced by the nearly 8-1 ratio of supportive speakers to detractors, Jeffrey Prang also noted the project itself had improved over the years.
“I fundamentally support this project, he said, but the memory of a broken promise stuck in his craw making his support When Casden came to him to ask his boundaries,” he recalled.
“I told them, ‘Don’t bring me anything with 10-stories,” and the first thing you brought me was a 14-story building.”
He recalled the 2006 mixed-use debate, during which “I made promises about tall buildings,” he said. “If I’m going to change my views, I better be prepared to explain why.”
He then explained that he heard his constituency, which overwhelmingly approved of the plans for the building’s height and density, along with the benefits it would bring the city. “I can’t challenge and diminish the judgment of the people…” involved in the project through the years.
Movietown Plaza rendering courtesy Casden Properties. WeHo News. |
“My better judgment tells me that months after the ten story project is full the people living there will complain to me that the traffic is bad and it’s my fault – I should do something about it,” he said.
He said, “If everybody is going to jump off the precipice saying ‘this is what we need’ I’m not going to stand in the way,” warning or penalizing the developments planned for the surrounding area because their projects will be forced to deal with the lack of traffic mitigations in the Movietown plans.
Admitting that going last makes for repeating others’ comments, she called the level of community support for it to be “amazing.”
Expressing a concern that the materials used to build the project be of a high standard, Mayor Abbe Land directed a discussion over the quality of materials be a central part of the final design phase of the project.
With conditions set throughout the council discussion, the motion to approve the project was approved unanimously.
Casden must still flesh out the details of the design, a process that should take 18 months, before groundbreaking can take place.
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