Roles in Renewal Plan Led to Hollywood Land Profits

A small number of Hollywood property owners, including some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, quietly bought up valuable land in the heart of the tattered movie capital while pushing through a city redevelopment plan last year that added millions to the value of their holdings.

Firms such as Pacific Theatres, Pantages Theatres, Grant Parking Inc. and Sunset-Gower Studios were acquiring or dealing in property while influencing Hollywood’s $922-million redevelopment plan, a six-month Times investigation has found.

Those companies--and other major landowners such as A&M; Records, Golden West Broadcasters, Mann Theatres and Metromedia Inc.--have profited enormously from skyrocketing property values since they led the push for redevelopment more than four years ago.

Since then, top-dollar land on Hollywood Boulevard has doubled from $2 million to $4 million an acre, commercial brokers estimate. Golden West Broadcasters and Metromedia, two of the many large firms that contributed financially to the plan, have already profited from the rising land values. Both have sold huge studio complexes on Sunset Boulevard in deals estimated to be worth more than $30 million apiece, interviews and property records disclosed.

During years of bitter conflict over growth, the business interests exercised extraordinary influence over the complex redevelopment process. They guided and shaped the plan from its inception, overpowering rival community groups who were less organized, less knowledgeable and less politically connected--but who nonetheless had their own vision for Hollywood’s future.

It was Hollywood’s major property owners who urged the city of Los Angeles, through its Community Redevelopment Agency, to make a goal of urban renewal in Hollywood, a community considered long overdue for a face-lift. The same interests, many of them major contributors to elected officials, provided private loan money to help the CRA initiate the plan.

Finally, working through the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, they battled to shape to their liking the plan that the CRA and the Los Angeles City Council adopted last year, one that firmly sets a course toward large-scale commercial growth. The plan includes incentives for building high-rise office and hotel towers and the authority to remove existing smaller structures--irrespective of the wishes of the occupants. It preserves Hollywood as a “regional center” not subject to stricter building limits elsewhere in the city.

For property owners, the generous zoning regulations have been worth up to $1 million an acre on Hollywood’s choicest commercial lots, according to land brokers.

“I’ve been talking to a lot of developers about Hollywood, and . . . what’s intriguing to them is the higher (zoning),” said veteran commercial land broker Brad Chelf of Coldwell Banker. “They can build things they can’t build elsewhere” in the city.

Worth Being Saved

Under state law, publicly supported redevelopment is intended to step in when an urban area worthy of being saved cannot find support elsewhere. It can provide direct assistance to private builders, including loan money for construction, property condemnation or a facility built at public expense for the project’s benefit, such as a parking garage.

In Hollywood, decisions have yet to be made on CRA assistance to specific projects. What has been approved--while a so-called “slow-growth” movement has gained strength elsewhere in the city--is a redevelopment zone in which the agency will help private landowners and developers rebuild central Hollywood.

Actual construction has yet to begin, but generally the 30-year plan envisions new hotels, restaurants, residences, office towers and a cleaned-up, pedestrian-oriented Hollywood Boulevard.

The core of the newly built area will run along Hollywood Boulevard from near Western Avenue on the east to La Brea Avenue on the west. The zone will extend more than a block north from Hollywood Boulevard toward the Hollywood Hills and several blocks south, moving across what are now residential areas that are home to 37,000 people. How many people will have to move is not yet known.

Different Viewpoints

Critics, including many who live and work in Hollywood, say the plan as written could do as much harm as good. They charge that the city is sacrificing valued historical sites by permitting giant towers to rise in their place, worsening already congested traffic--also a concern of Los Angeles city planners. Height and density limits on new construction became the major issue in the controversy that developed over the Hollywood plan.

Although a lawsuit by residents charges other wrongdoing in shaping the plan, the landowners who benefited apparently did not, as individuals, violate the conflict-of-interest provisions of the state law governing community redevelopment projects. The law permits business interests to take part in such projects even if they stand to gain. But in Hollywood, with the help of the Chamber of Commerce, land owners achieved positions of power in the planning process unequaled in other city redevelopment areas where a large resident population would be affected.

Partnership Formed

First, business interests formed a financial partnership with the CRA. Largely accomplishing it at a single fund-raiser in 1983, chamber members raised $150,000 for use by the CRA to undertake initial studies of Hollywood. The unusual transaction--private companies helping finance a government study--occurred at a time when public funds for the survey were short.

Later the same year, Chamber of Commerce members captured more than half the seats on a 25-member citizens’ committee formed to draft the original plan. They filled all but one seat designated for business interests, and then, through influence with city officials, won further seats by appointment. It became the only such redevelopment committee among half a dozen now at work in Los Angeles on which business interests held more seats than residents.

The extent of the chamber’s involvement, particularly its domination of the redevelopment committee, prompted residents to file their suit last year. They charged that business and government interests abused the redevelopment process and conspired to shape a plan benefiting the Chamber of Commerce group at the expense of residents, small merchants and the Hollywood community.

Charge Is Denied

It is a charge that chamber members and public officials vigorously denied. Landowners also denied using undue influence or profiting unfairly from their role in creating the plan.

Bill Welsh, the Hollywood chamber president, organized the fund-raising effort to pay for the early planning study and, as a member of the CRA-established citizens’ committee, became a leading architect of the high-rise zoning standards that were adopted.

In an interview, Welsh called complaints in the lawsuit “ridiculous . . . an absolute lie. We have never controlled that (committee). The chamber membership (on the committee) never voted as a bloc. . . . It’s like saying we shouldn’t have a bloc of Presbyterians on there, because they’re all going to vote the same way.”

Landowners said that profits were not their primary goal. They said their heavy involvement in the project was aimed at reversing Hollywood’s long years of decline, which had left the community filled with boarded-up buildings, trash, vagrants and prostitutes.

Commercial Interest

“Our motivation was to make (Hollywood) an area . . . that would have life and vitality and commercial interest,” said Stanley Spero, past board chairman of the chamber and still a vice president of Golden West Broadcasters, which lent $10,000 to the agency. “(We) wanted the area to flourish and grow. It was not (done) for the appreciation of the property, so that someday a big (financial) killing could be made here.”

William Hertz, marketing director for Mann Theatres, said chamber board members regularly weighed redevelopment issues--but only to plan a community renaissance. “What we’re all looking for in Hollywood is to enhance Hollywood,” the former chamber president said. “It’s a chamber plan . . . and, I think, a total community plan to bring Hollywood into its glory days again. . . .”

But the role of Welsh, Hertz and other landowner representatives who served on the citizens’ committee alienated residents--some of whom initially supported redevelopment--and sharply divided the Hollywood community. Meeting records show that chamber members tended to support the same causes, using their numbers to overpower the minority on the committee as the plan took shape.

Development Interests

The effect was to promote development interests and to dampen the outcry of residents and small merchants, some of whom, city officials acknowledge, will be forced out in eminent domain proceedings and other property transactions.

Residents and merchants fought vainly for limits on the CRA’s power to condemn residential property and for more assurance that small merchants could participate in the plan in cooperation with developers. Outnumbered on the committee, residents and their allies were given less say in the plan than intended by a state law written to protect the small interests in redevelopment projects, according to the law’s author.

“The project area committees were intended to include the people . . . that were going to be adversely affected” by redevelopment, said state Sen. Joseph B. Montoya (D-Whittier), whose legislation in the mid-1970s gave a legal voice to such committees. “Up until that time, a city could just decide an area was blighted and wipe out residential homeowners or small business people.”

Opposition to large-scale Hollywood redevelopment dominated by builders was slow to form. Residents and small merchants said the full implications of the plan were at first not understood. In the lower-income areas, where many do not speak English, few expressed knowledge or interest. But when opponents finally did fight back, the plan became a volatile political issue. Critics eventually included a number of resident and merchant groups, including the large Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., which represents homeowners in the Hollywood Hills.

Anti-Growth Sentiment

Sentiment against growth and redevelopment led to the downfall of former Hollywood-area City Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson and the rise of the city’s first Asian Councilman, Michael Woo, in 1985. Woo wrote important last-minute amendments into the Hollywood plan before its adoption last year by the City Council. The compromises lowered some construction limits, set aside money for social-aid programs for the homeless and other poor, and created incentives for preserving landmarks.

But residents have continued to criticize the plan, saying that it still permits excessive development and that guarantees for community benefits are too loosely worded to assure that they will happen. The lawsuit is set for trial next month.

Lost in the legal turf war over homes and shops versus high-rise development has been a public understanding of the extent to which landowners stand to benefit from the plan that they controlled and helped finance. Behind the scenes, many have expanded their land holdings inside the zone and are designing major development projects at key corners of the film capital. Those projects--and others they may inspire--figure to bring bountiful profits for builders and establish the character of a newer, glitzier, but more congested Hollywood.

Pantages Theatres, which lent $5,000 to the agency, has acquired nearly seven acres over the last four years near the historic corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. That property, zoned for high-rise commercial growth, has escalated in value from about $2.2 million an acre to $3.4 million, said Stan Seiden, the chain’s West regional president.

Pantages is planning a multimillion-dollar entertainment complex at the site, featuring a 300- or 400-room hotel, theaters, shops and restaurants. The new construction, Seiden said, will “restore Hollywood and Vine to what Hollywood and Vine was.”

As the redevelopment plan took shape, Pantages worked closely with Stevenson and later Woo to pave the way for the project, Seiden said. Although Pantages has all the land it needs now, the CRA could help to condemn additional land if needed, according to Seiden, a former chamber board member.

“They’re movers,” Seiden said of the agency. “They make things happen.”

Loan to Agency

Millionaire investor Saul Pick, who built Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome before shelling out $6.2 million to acquire Columbia Studios in the late 1970s, also lent $5,000 to the agency to help initiate redevelopment. Pick is now planning a $30-million to $40-million expansion of his studios and sound stages at Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street.

That expansion will involve the huge Columbia lot--renamed Sunset-Gower Studios--and land containing the Aquarius Theatre, which Pick acquired for about $3.3 million in 1983.

Pick strongly denied that the redevelopment plan will create any benefit for his project. High-rise zoning will mean nothing for his studios, nor will rising land values mean he can get better leases for his heavily used facilities, he said.

Pick also denied playing any political role in the plan’s approval, despite his loan to the agency. He said he could not recall writing or signing a letter that the City Council received from him urging the plan’s adoption, and he said he was not aware of major political contributions made by his companies--$7,900 to Stevenson from 1980 to 1985 and $1,500 to Woo in 1985, according to campaign reports.

“I stay out of politics, for your information,” Pick said. “The more you stay away from it, the cleaner you are.”

Choice Property

A company called Westmark Development--owned by chamber member Thomas Harnsberger and a partner, Nicholas E. Olearts--did not provide loans to the redevelopment agency, but it pushed for the plan while buying up some of the choicest property in Hollywood, near Mann’s Chinese Theatre.

Pieced together over several years beginning in 1983, Westmark’s two major land deals show the importance of secrecy to developers and illustrate how developers used inside knowledge about the plan and its probable impact on Hollywood to maximize their own profits.

Initially, Westmark bought seven acres of land surrounding the Chinese Theatre--at Hollywood Boulevard near Highland Avenue--and on that site began planning a new commercial complex. Now set for construction by Melvin Simon & Associates, the huge open-air plaza is expected to be a cornerstone of the redevelopment effort, with a 400-room hotel, a 17-story office tower and a $53-million motion-picture museum.

Tourist Attraction

The museum, likely to become a major tourist attraction, was a state project looking for a home in the redevelopment area. Westmark actively sought the museum for its complex but kept its intentions under wraps while negotiating for another valuable commercial site less than a block away, records and interviews showed. Property owners realized that disclosure of a likely museum location would drive up the value of land surrounding it.

A committee formed to look for a museum site also agreed to keep quiet about its negotiations with Westmark. Members of that committee included, besides a CRA planner, Chamber of Commerce leaders Welsh and Marshall A. Caskey, who at the time were actively shaping the overall redevelopment plan. Search committee members had concerns similar to Westmark’s, according to Caskey: Publicity could raise land values and end up costing the state money.

“Prices for property have gone up 25% to 50% since the announcement of the (redevelopment agency’s) involvement in Hollywood,” one committee member, a developer, warned in late 1984 in the early stages of the museum deal. “This reinforces the reason to keep possible (museum) sites confidential so the price of the land does not go up (further). . . .”

‘Negative Press’

At one meeting, the committee even considered strategies for minimizing unwanted publicity, according to meeting records obtained by The Times: “To combat negative press, we should schedule (press) releases”--announcing, for example, newly hired consultants, a committee member advised. “If these are programmed properly, then the press will not have to dig up news and print items we would prefer were not released.”

In an interview, Caskey said he did not recall discussions of ways to manipulate the media. But he defended the clandestine nature of the committee work by calling it “conventional” practice for would-be land buyers: “There’s no sense paying more for the land than you have to,” he said.

In the end, Westmark became a double winner. It was officially awarded the museum site in February. Before the announcement, while the museum negotiations remained confidential, Westmark also bought up the additional property it wanted--five acres just east of Mann’s Chinese Theatre, where more major commercial construction is now planned in cooperation with the redevelopment agency.

Olearts of Westmark said the company merely did the sensible thing. It would have been poor business practice, he said, to publicize the first project and then to ask, “Can I buy your dirt next door?’ ”

“You’d be a madman” to do that, Olearts said.

Commercial Area

Other chamber firms that pushed for the plan also have bought property, mostly along major commercial streets.

A&M; Records, the giant recording label owned by Herb Alpert of Tijuana Brass fame, lent $5,000 to the redevelopment agency and recently added two small parcels to its holdings south of Sunset Boulevard to make way for a future expansion of sound studios, a company spokesman said.

Pacific Theatres, an early partner of the Pantages chain, lent $10,000 to the CRA and spent about $1.5 million in early 1985 to acquire nearly a block of parking lots and building space facing Hollywood Boulevard. That purchase came just as the redevelopment committee was endorsing a land-use plan for high-rise growth--a fact that may have played a role in the acquisition, company spokesman Dan Chernow acknowledged.

Chamber board member George Ullman lent $7,000 to the agency--$5,000 as owner of Grant Parking Inc., $2,000 as head of the Bank of Hollywood--and subsequently bought land at several sites in Hollywood, including choice property near Hollywood and Vine.

“I buy property wherever I think I can make a dollar,” Ullman said. “I’ve probably bought more property in downtown Los Angeles than in Hollywood.” He said he was buying land in Hollywood before redevelopment plans began.

sh Increasing Value

A partner of Ullman’s, Larry Worchell, lent $4,000 to the agency and acknowledged that he hoped a redevelopment project would boost the value of his own investments: “Absolutely,” he said. “There’s no doubt about it. That is the function of the (redevelopment agency), isn’t it?”

Critics answer that with a resounding no, and charge that the CRA project for Hollywood never did get proper public scrutiny. Many residents and small merchants argued that Hollywood was destined for renewal with or without a CRA plan--a viewpoint supported last year by a Los Angeles County study committee that reviewed the Hollywood plan. In a booming city, critics said, the film capital offered glamour, freeways and a location only minutes from new office towers downtown. Was it really necessary to divert nearly $1 billion from other public agencies--including $400 million from the county--to encourage new growth there? County officials thought not.

Others in Hollywood wanted a plan, but one placing tough limits on growth and ensuring preservation of historic buildings.

In the debate over the CRA’s role, critics charged that by accepting loans from the chamber group that stood to benefit from the plan, the agency stepped over the line of government-private interest relationship.

“(That was) an absolute, overt conflict of interest,” said Brad Berlin, an activist in the residents’ lawsuit.

Agency Chairman Jim Wood said he doubted that most agency officials even knew who contributed the loans, strongly disputing the charge. “At no time did a land owner talk to me, ever, (and) say, ‘We put the money up; you should look at our interests,’ ” Wood said. “That is just a phony issue.”

Wood talked frankly, however, about the role of developers in creating the growth that brings in property-tax revenue--money that is the lifeblood of the agency, paying for salaries, for public projects like parking garages and financing CRA-supported housing projects and social-service programs. “The role of the business community in redevelopment is not incidental--it’s central,” Wood said. “(Businesses) provide the funds to do all the things we all want to do. That’s a fact of redevelopment life.

“We work with the business community . . . so there is an environment in which they (want) to invest their money.”

One-Sided Affair

Opponents also have seized on the composition of the redevelopment committee as evidence of further favoritism by the CRA and former Councilwoman Stevenson. The structure of the committee gave more seats to business representatives than to residents--despite demographic reports showing that business interests were a minority in the project area. All but four seats on the 25-member advisory panel were filled by election, but the four that Stevenson filled by appointment tipped the balance, giving the chamber a majority of 13 members.

Three of the four she appointed were chamber members.

“They stacked the (committee),” said attorney Christopher Sutton, representing residents in their lawsuit. “They put their own people on there who just said, ‘Oh, it looks fine to me,’ and signed off” on the plan.

Stevenson denied she appointed members because they belonged to the chamber. “I looked for people who had faith in Hollywood,” she said in interview. “Some people seem to think that anybody who is involved in business is somehow a villain. I don’t like to label people.”

‘Not Like Congress’

Asked about the committee’s balance, then-CRA Administrator Edward Helfeld downplayed the issue, saying the panel is “not like Congress,” where a domination by one party can mean victory or defeat. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” Helfeld said. “Is the plan heavily tilted toward big development?”

One who believes the plan does favor developers--and that Hollywood will suffer for it--is Calvin Hamilton, who was director of the City Planning Department when the plan was being formed. Hamilton fought for much tougher limits on new growth, anticipating that CRA-assisted development in Hollywood would add greatly to worsening traffic.

In 1985, city planning officials questioned the accuracy of the CRA’s traffic projections; at many intersections, planners said, CRA projections for the year 2000 already were being exceeded--and had been for several years.

“There is no question in my mind . . . (agency officials) did not play fair” in assessing traffic and zoning issues in Hollywood, Hamilton said last year, in a declaration filed as part of the residents’ lawsuit. “(They) continually warped the truth to their own liking.”

Agency officials denied that charge, saying that the CRA intended to deal more closely with traffic after the plan was adopted.

Other Difficulties

Other controversies plagued the process at the redevelopment committee’s increasingly stormy meetings, including charges last year that CRA officials doctored records to downplay dissent over the plan.

In declarations filed as part of the residents’ lawsuit, two former agency employees alleged that their supervisors extensively rewrote the drafts of committee meeting minutes and, at one point, ordered tapes of meetings to be recorded over and erased. According to former agency secretary Brenda Hendricks in her written statement to the court, extensive editing resulted in “nearly all reports of controversy and all statements criticizing the agency” being “either completely removed or altered.”

“They’re wrong,” agency chairman Wood responded, saying he had checked into the charges. “Just because somebody says something doesn’t mean it’s true. I’m prepared to accept the outcome of a judge’s ruling. I want to get to court. I am satisfied . . . we followed the letter and spirit of the California redevelopment law in everything we did--every aspect of it.”

The committee, now responsible for reviewing projects as they come forth under the redevelopment plan, drew further critical fire last summer. When some of its members faced reelection by residents and business people in the project area, angry questions were raised about their qualifications.

Qualifications Questioned

Was chamber member Margaret La Kretz, owner of the Crossroads of the World office complex, qualified to serve on a committee seat reserved for an operator of industrial and warehousing land, as she had been for more than two years? And was Jack Goodman, the owner of a Cadillac dealership, qualified to serve in an industrial and warehousing seat, given that industrial and warehousing uses are not permitted on his property under city zoning laws? Bitter exchanges took place between opponents of the plan and the chamber members, who argued that they qualified for the seats they held.

Woo, commenting on a riotous election meeting last June, said: “The (agency) staff really bungled the conduct of the elections. However, I did not feel the allegations were significant enough to disrupt the entire process by calling new elections or removing (committee) members.”

The agency, meanwhile, ran its own investigation of the charges--in cooperation with the committee. La Kretz took part. Afterward, agency officer Donald Pelegrino, who helped to run the inquiry, brushed off questions as if the matter were closed. “The (committee) itself investigated it and found there were no wrongdoings,” Pelegrino said. “It’s in the law courts now.”

HOLLYWOOD PROPERTY OWNERS WHO WILL BENEFIT UNDER REDEVELOPMENT

Here are the major companies whose properties have escalated in value because of the Hollywood redevelopment plan that they helped formulate. Those listed alphabetically here are the top 10 in commercial land holdings within the redevelopment area.

1. A & M Records.

Owner/operator: Herb Alpert and Jerome S. Moss, co-owners.

Property in the project area: Nearly two city blocks, estimated in value at $16 to $ 18 million. The company has added two small parcels to its holdings since 1983 to begin planning a major studio expansion.

Political contributions: $8,500 to Mayor Tom Bradley, 1984-85. $2,400 to former City Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson 1980-84. Additional notes: Loaned $5,000 to the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency to help initiate the plan. Represented on the Hollywood citizens committee overseeing the plan 1983-1987. A board member company of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce 2. Golden West Broadcasters.

Owner/operator: Gene Autry.

Property in the project area: Held about four city blocks on Sunset Boulevard near the Hollywood Freeway, assessed at $15 million in 1983. Sold the studio complex to Tribune Broadcasting earlier this year at an undisclosed price described by one official as twice what was offered for the property four years ago.

Political contributions: $22,500 to Bradley 1985-86. $500 to Woo 1985.

Additional notes: Loaned $10,000 to the CRA to help start the plan. Vice President Stanley Spero is past board chairman of the chamber. 3. The Gower Company.

Owner/operator: Dr. Clarence Gazin.

Property in the project area: A city block near Sunset Boulevard and De Longpre Avenue, estimated in value at $5 million. Political contributions: $1,700 to Stevenson 1983-84.

Additional notes: The company built Hollywood Community Hospital in 1962, adjacent to its present holdings, and remained an affiliate of the hospital during the early stages of redevelopment planning. The Gower Co. was represented on the citizens committee 1983-86. The hospital, which loaned $10,000 to the CRA to help start the plan, also was represented on the committee 1983-86. 4. Grant Parking, Inc.

Owner/operator: George Ullman, president.

Property in the project area: Roughly five acres at scattered locations, mostly near Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, valued at more than $8 million. Ullman is a part owner of the former Brown Derby site on Vine Street and recently acquired the former Max Factor company buildings at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. Political contributions: $1,251 to Bradley 1986. $1,850 to Stevenson 1981-84. $600 to Woo 1986.

Additional notes: Grant Parking loaned $5,000 to the CRA to help start the plan. Ullman, a chamber board member, is head of the Bank of Hollywood, which loaned an additional $2,000 for the plan. He is also president of Hollywood Palladium Corp., which donated $1,500 to Woo in 1985. 5. Mann Theatres Corp.

Owner/operator: Ted Mann, president.

Property in the project area: Three major theater locations on Hollywood Boulevard--Mann’s Chinese, Fox and Vogue. Political contributions: $3,900 to Bradley 1983-85. $8,150 to Stevenson 1980-85.

Additional notes: Loaned $5,000 to the CRA to help start the plan. Represented on the redevelopment committee 1986-1987 by William Hertz, former Chamber of Commerce president. 6. Metromedia, Inc.

Owner/operator: John Kluge, president.

Property in the project area: Held roughly six blocks of land and studios near Sunset Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway valued at $33 million in 1983. Sold most of the complex late that year to a private partnership but kept one parcel valued at nearly $500,000. Political contributions: $1,500 to Bradley 1985. $4,850 to Stevenson 1981-85.

Additional notes: Loaned $10,000 to the CRA to help start the plan. Metromedia-owned Foster & Kleiser contributed an additional $5,500 to Bradley 1985-86 and $7,375 to Stevenson 1980-85. Part-time Metromedia-Fox broadcaster Bill Welsh, best known as television announcer for Rose Parade, has been a member of the redevelopment committee 1983-87 and is president of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. 7. Pacific Theatres Corp.

Owner/operator: Jerome Forman, president.

Property in the project area: About two city blocks, including the Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard near Vine Street and storefronts on Hollywood Boulevard, estimated in value at close to $7 million. Political contributions: $9,500 to Bradley 1984-86. $17,450 to Stevenson 1980-85.

Additional notes: Loaned !0,000 to the CRA to help start the plan. A board member company of the chamber. 8. Pantages Theatres

Owner/operator: James Nederlander, president.

Property in the project area: About three city blocks near Hollywood and Vine, valued at more than $20 million. The company plans a major new theater district including restaurants, shops and a hotel. Political contributions: $1,000 to Bradley 1986. $1,550 to Stevenson 1982-83. $3,000 to Woo 1985.

Additional notes: Land at the site has escalated during the last three years from about $2 million an acre to more than $3 million an acre, a company official said. Pantages, a former partner of the Pacific Theatres chain, loaned $5,000 to the CRA to help start the plan. The company was represented on the chamber board of directors 1984-85. 9. Sunset-Gower Studios.

Owner/operator: Saul Pick.

Property in the project area: About six city blocks of studios on Sunset Boulevard, estimated in valued at more than $50 million. Acquired the Aquarius Theatre and surrounding parking lots for about $3.3 million in 1983 to make room for a major studio expansion. Political contributions: $7,900 to Stevenson 1980-85. $1,500 to Woo 1985.

Additional notes: Loaned $5,000 help launch the redevelopment plan. A new chamber member. 10. Westmark Development

Owner/operator: Tom Harnsberger and Nick Olearts.

Property in the project area: About two city blocks at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue, acquired 1983-87, and smaller parcels nearby. Partners in a planned $150-million entertainment and office complex surrounding Mann’s Chinese Theatre. Also plans a major commercial development half a block east of the theater. Political contributions: $1,750 to Stevenson 1984-85. $3,500 to Woo 1985-86.

Additional notes: Land near the Westmark site, which sold for about $2 million three years ago, now is being listed for more than $4 million an acre--the top rates in Hollywood. Chamber member Harnsberger worked with a state site-selection committee to develop plans for a publicly supported film museum.