1st Under Renewal Plan : Hollywood Center Project Approved

The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to approve plans for Hollywood Center, a $150-million project intended to bring an office tower, a 400-room hotel and a motion-picture museum to property surrounding Mann’s Chinese Theatre.

Hollywood-area Councilman Michael Woo, who urged support for the project despite objections from some community residents, described the complex as a possible end to years of deterioration in the movie capital. The project is the first approved since the city acted in May to approve a $922-million redevelopment plan for Hollywood.

“I’m confident this project will be a major turning point in the history of efforts to revitalize Hollywood,” Woo told council members. “This is an excellent project . . . which constitutes a major step forward.”

Reports Challenged

Council members did not debate the project, although several community members challenged environmental reports for the center. Opponents said the reports did not adequately consider the center’s building heights and the traffic that would be generated at the busy intersection of Highland Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard.

Tuesday’s hearing was the second at which opponents have urged city officials to eliminate the project or scale it down. Several groups, including the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns. and the Greater Hollywood Civic Assn., first appealed plans for the Hollywood Center in October, at a hearing before the Los Angeles City Planning Commission.

Commission members unanimously supported the project, however, praising developers for their careful planning efforts. Since then, several groups have dropped the appeal. Only four people testified against the project Tuesday, three members of the preservationist group Save Hollywood Our Town and Judy Blue, a Hollywood Boulevard merchant.

Blue, who provided nearly all of the opponents’ testimony Tuesday, charged that the Planning Commission and the City Council were secretly planning to condemn property and locate the center at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, about 10 blocks east of the proposed Highland Avenue site.

Woo was quick to discount Blue’s accusations.

“You have heard no other intentions because there is no other true intention,” Woo said.

George Mihlsten, an attorney for Indianapolis-based Melvin Simon & Associates, developers of the project, said the company now is acquiring land at the Highland Avenue site and will not need to condemn property to build the center.

The firm has planned to construct restaurants, retail shops and theaters around a plaza surrounding the Chinese Theatre. During negotiations with about 20 homeowner groups, Mihlsten said, developers agreed to limit the height of the hotel and the nearby, 400,000-square-foot office tower to 235 feet--the height of an existing Holiday Inn that adjoins the property.

Original plans called for a 300-foot hotel and a 385-foot office tower, he said.

Extra Parking Spaces

In addition, Mihlsten said, developers have agreed to provide 4,200 parking spaces for the center--about 1,000 more than required by city codes--and to spend nearly $5 million on traffic improvements in Hollywood. Roughly $3.5 million of that money is to pay for a computerized traffic signal system for about 40 intersections in the community.

The money will enable the city to complete the system by the time Hollywood Center opens in late summer 1989, Mihlsten said.

An additional $1.2 million will help pay for street improvements at Highland and Franklin avenues, he said.

Supporting Testimony

Eliot Johnson, president of the Hollywood Heights Assn., a neighborhood group based just north of the project site, testified in support of the complex, saying members have long supported a quality development there.

The project also drew support from Bill Welsh, president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Welsh said he agreed with Planning Commission President Daniel P. Garcia, who said in October that Hollywood was lucky to attract such a quality project so early in the redevelopment effort.

Opponents of the project “think we are miracle workers who can improve Hollywood without improving its appearance,” Welsh said. “We are not miracle workers. . . . This is something we should seize upon and be grateful for.”