Even With Deli, Residents Find Project Unpalatable
Residents of the area may end up with a better pastrami sandwich if plans move ahead for a shopping center and an eight-screen movie theater complex at 8000 Sunset Boulevard. But for now, all they have is indigestion.
At a meeting last week, more than 100 homeowners shouted down representatives of the development company that intends to build a $40-million project on the site of Schwab’s drugstore of Hollywood legend.
Originally planned as a high-rise office tower with an apartment hotel at the back of the property, the project has been scaled down to include theaters, a new Schwab’s, a West Coast branch of New York’s Carnegie Deli, food stores and upscale retail outlets, developers said.
It is now the site of a boarded-up pizza parlor and marginal shops including “Junk for Joy,” a costume store whose show window features a mannequin in a white Elvis Presley suit with three gold chains.
Many of the residents said they were reconciled to the idea that something eventually will be built on the site located at the foot of Laurel Canyon, only one of several developments planned or already under construction in the area. One shopping strip is set to install a McDonald’s outlet at the site of the historic Garden of Allah, the fabled frolicking place of an earlier Hollywood.
However, the idea of 1,900 movie patrons shuttling in and out of the already crowded intersection angered residents despite the promise of an across-the-street rival to Greenblatt’s, a 61-year-old deli on the north side of Sunset Boulevard.
Leo Steiner, owner of the landmark Carnegie Deli, said, “I have no comment about that there” when asked about claims by the developer that he has committed himself to move a West Coast branch of his deli into the 8000 Sunset project.
But he put Greenblatt’s on notice, saying “There is no other deli that has as good as we do. I throw the challenge up to any deli in the country.”
Roy Kavin, owner of Greenblatt’s, took up the challenge, saying that New York-style service is not likely to take away his clientele.
“If they’re good enough to knock us out of the box, more power to them,” he said. “This isn’t New York. I’ve heard New York waiters are surly, the places are dirty and they throw food at you. They can’t get away with that here.”
His son, Jeffrey, said the Kavins are more concerned about increased demands for parking than about additional traffic but that they do not oppose the proposed project.
“I think the bigger issue is the fact that they’re building 50 of these things (development projects) on Sunset Boulevard, and the city does not have a comprehensive plan to deal with it,” he said.
“There are trade-offs for living in an urban area, but you don’t make total gridlock, and that’s what you’re going to have in a short period of time,” said Joan Satt, an officer of the Sunset Plaza Civic Assn., a homeowners’ group.
“We do intend to fight them right down the line,” said Jimmy Bryant, president of the Hollywood-Crescent Property Owners Inc.
He said six local groups have banded together to form Hollywood Neighborhood Assn. Coalition (HONAC), which will undertake a court fight if necessary to keep out the movie theaters.
They have scheduled a meeting next week with City Councilman Michael Woo, who took over responsibility for the area last year after redistricting.
“We always got good cooperation from Joel Wachs,” (who now represents a district in the San Fernando Valley), Bryant said. “He (Woo) called me to say he’s not that happy with the project and he’s not signed off on it and he does not intend to until we’ve had some input.
“From that standpoint, so far he’s done well. We’re having a meeting with him Monday and we’ll see how we stand.”
Bryant said he was surprised by the tone of last week’s meeting, held at the parish hall of the St. Ambrose Catholic Church.
“It was frightening, wasn’t it?” Bryant recalled. “I thought it was going to be a nice meeting where everybody asks questions and discusses alternatives, but I thought we’d have to call the police. For a minute, I could smell the tar boiling in the back.”
After listening with growing impatience to a presentation by former Los Angeles Councilman Art Snyder, who is representing the Condor Wescorp development firm, the crowd erupted with hoots and jeers to a suggestion that traffic flow might actually improve once the project is in place.
This would come about because of the developers’ mandatory $100,000 contribution to ATSAC (Automatic Traffic Surveillance and Control System), an areawide program of computerized traffic signals, Snyder said.
“Oh, come on,” one resident yelled. “This is an insult to our intelligence,” said another.
“You’re a bore and he’s a bore,” a third shouted, referring to traffic consultant Dan Barnett.
“And you’re a gentleman?” Snyder snapped back.
The crowd also howled when Snyder attempted to describe the waterfalls and three colors of glass intended to make the building architecturally distinctive.
“Who cares?” one resident cried. “What about the traffic?”
According to Barnett’s worst-case analysis, the project would increase traffic by 1.5% to 2% at the intersection, which is rated as one of the most congested in the city, while ATSAC is expected to reduce the flow by 6%.
The parcel now generates about 2,200 car trips a day, Barnett said, adding that the total is expected to increase to 10,245 once the project is in place.
Barnett drew ironic cheers when he said that the area around Sunset and Crescent Heights boulevards was not growing as fast as Westwood, downtown or other parts of Hollywood.
“Good! Real good!” the crowd responded.
Told by Snyder that theater traffic would come after the rush hour, the residents responded with groans.
“That’s very nice,” one said. “We really like it. Now, it’s only rush hour, and then it will be day and night.”
Despite the hostility, Woo’s Hollywood planning deputy, David Duncan, urged further meetings in an effort to work out a compromise.
He noted that part of the parcel is already zoned for commercial development along Sunset and Crescent Heights boulevards and Laurel Avenue.
This means that a project as large as 80,000 square feet could be built without approval from the city, while an apartment hotel could be built at the same time on land now occupied by a residential-zoned parking lot and apartment house in the back, all owned by the same developer.
However, since the developers are talking about a 136,000-square-foot project, they will need a zoning change to convert the residential areas to commercial use, he said.
“The residents and the city are at an advantage now because it’s a discretionary action,” Duncan said.
Goes to Committee
After a Planning Commission meeting scheduled for Sept. 3, the issue will go to the City Council’s Planning and Environment Committee, of which Woo is a member, before it is heard by the entire council.
“This allows the community a much greater input into the process,” Duncan said.
Duncan said part of the problem is that the stretch of Sunset Boulevard near Crescent Heights and Laurel Canyon has not been developed as much as it could have been.
“It’s happening all over the city,” he said. “The prevailing character of the neighborhood has not changed for years, so they’re not aware of the higher density allowed.”
In recent months, for example, work has begun on a six-floor office building and theater complex for the Directors Guild, located just east of the old Schwab’s site on Sunset Boulevard.
According to Charles Warn, a spokesman for the Directors Guild, the building “is going to be a real architectural landmark for the whole area,” in a style recalling the swooping lines of New York’s Guggenheim Museum.
Warn said no objections were raised to the project, which is being built on a lot that the Directors Guild has owned for decades.
Additionally, a small shopping strip started before the city’s six-month moratorium on mini-malls was enacted in July has just been completed on a site between the Directors Guild current building and the 8000 Sunset parcel.
And bulldozers have cleared the way for yet another shopping strip on the southeast corner of Sunset and Crescent Heights, once the site of the Garden of Allah, the residence of choice for show-business types of decades ago.
“We certainly hear the people when they say they’ve had enough,” Duncan said. “That’s a balance we have to strike. We do have to recognize that these people (developers) can and do have some rights to develop their property. It’s up to the city, especially where there’s discretionary action required, to see that there’s balanced development that does address the needs of the community.”
Developers Will Continue
Snyder said that if the zoning change is blocked, the developers will go ahead with the movie theaters and an apartment complex, neither of which would need approval from the city.
“You may say, ‘No sir,’ but they have a right to do it and it would be the only economic use of the land,” Snyder said.
Although Snyder took a tough line, Fred W. Jacobs, chief financial officer for Condor Wescorp, said he is willing to listen to the neighbors’ concerns.
“Obviously, whenever a developer goes into an area, there are immediate stereotypes about him, and from the developer’s point of view, there are stereotypes of the people in the community, that they don’t want change and that they don’t realize that their complaints are not about the new project but about the existing conditions,” he said.
“But as intelligent human beings, we know both sides have a lot of merit in their arguments.”
Although he said there is nothing he can do about the traffic that already clogs the area during much of the day, Jacobs said he is willing to compromise as long as he can make money on the deal.
“The bottom line is that the reason people like to put movie theaters and some of the most exclusive stores into our site is because of the traffic that’s already started there,” he said.
“The rents are going to be of such magnitude that only the best businesses will be able to afford to be in there,” he said. “That’s the best corner in Hollywood, and I’m convinced that it deserves the best project in there, because of its location and its visibility from five different angles. If we did anything less, we wouldn’t be adding as much of value to the community.”
Gregory S. Rutkowski, vice president of American Multi-Cinema, the firm that intends to put eight movie theaters into the site, also called it a dream location.
“Certainly the demographics and the densities are such that they make it a very attractive theater site,” he said.
Traffic Solution
As for neighbors’ complaints, he said that the design of the building, with access from three streets, is likely to solve the problem of increased traffic and parking.
Rutkowski also said that show times will be staggered for the eight theaters in order to smooth out the flow of traffic.
“We didn’t go into the deal with the idea that we were going to be a public nuisance,” he said. “People are going to be surprised, when the development is up and running, just how smooth things are going to go.”
Despite the growing popularity of videocassette recorders, Rutkowski defended the building of new theaters in the Hollywood area as simple economics of supply and demand.
“Marketplaces are changing,” he said, arguing that traffic and congestion are frustrating for fans who would rather see a new film in their own neighborhood than drive to a theater across town.
“So we’re seeing closer multiple runs and more theaters playing a particular film,” he said. “We’re spreading the theaters around to ensure that people have a reasonable opportunity to view a film, as opposed to driving a long distance.
“If there’s one thing we’re trying to do at AMC, it’s choose our locations and marketplaces carefully where we’re going to expand. It’s not our objective to over-screen marketplaces, and we feel there is great expansion potential in this site.”
Kansas City-based AMC is the nation’s second-largest theater chain, after United Artists. A spokesman for the firm said it has now has 68 screens at 11 locations in Southern California.
