Builder Bets on Clock Watchers

There was an artificial look to the people strolling beneath Yehuda Netanel’s clock tower. But Netanel’s look of nervousness was genuine.

The people were tiny plastic figures glued to a scale model of a $17-million shopping center with a tower theme that Netanel hopes to build in Encino. Netanel was waiting to show the $10,000 rendering to a homeowner group in hopes of winning support for the unusual tower.

“The clock tower is what is going to make this project tick,” he acknowledged as he stood outside the door to a Homeowners of Encino meeting Thursday night.

Italian Theme

“But will the clock tower tick off the residents?” Netanel asked as he waited to be called into the meeting.

The answer is crucial to whether Netanel will be allowed to build his unusual Ventura Boulevard project.

His idea is to construct a shopping and office center with an Italian theme on a 1.2-acre site on the northeast corner of Ventura and Firmament Avenue at the boundary between Encino and Sherman Oaks.

The three-story, 45-foot-tall, U-shaped building would form an arch-bordered courtyard where a partly subterranean, upscale restaurant could be located. Beneath that would be an underground parking garage for 287 cars--room for free parking for shoppers and employees alike, according to the plans.

Above it all would be the tower.

Everything else in the plan--including floor space, parking and landscaping--apparently conforms to Los Angeles city building restrictions imposed on the Encino area. The tower does not.

It would be painted red and would have a four-faced clock near its 68-foot-tall top. But that height is 23 feet too tall to be built without a special city waiver.

“For many years, clock towers were the focal point of town squares,” said Netanel, a Calabasas resident. “It would be the thing that everybody remembers. We’d like to provide a little visual relief to the boulevard with the clock tower.”

Visible From Far Away

There’s another reason for the tower, too. It would serve as the signpost for the 25 stores, smaller shops and top-floor offices that otherwise may be hidden from view in the courtyard.

“It’s a fact of life that retailers have to have some visibility, particularly those in the back,” said Jay Carl Stiehl, an architect from Westlake Village who designed the project.

Stiehl said he is no fan of the type of free-standing signs found in most shopping centers. “So I asked myself how can I make something out of a pylon sign. That’s where the tower came from,” he said.

The tower concept was first revealed last week to a rival homeowner group, the Encino Property Owners Assn. Shown a black-and-white sketch of the proposed project, members of that group reacted negatively.

“We said to get rid of the clock, that it detracts from a beautiful project,” said Kathy Lewis, head of Encino Property Owners’ zoning committee.

So Netanel hurriedly had the scale model finished in time to take to the Homeowners of Encino meeting at the Encino Recreation Center. When his time finally came to speak, he displayed it from all angles to an audience of about 30.

“I mean it in the most uncynical sense. It will be a step forward for Encino,” he told residents. “It will be something we’re proud of. Real splendor without the congestion.”

Notwithstanding competition from rival shopping centers, including the indoor Sherman Oaks Galleria three blocks away, his tower center would “bring some cosmopolitan sophistication to Encino,” he pledged.

The tower fared better this time.

“It’s nice. The tower makes it all worthwhile,” homeowner Esther Elgenson said after the meeting. “It adds to the whole thing. It gives us a striking landmark.”

Neighbor Lisa Miles agreed: “I like the tower. I think we need more clocks. I’m a little leery of getting all the store names on it, though. I’m not sure it will be beautiful then. Signs are not pretty things.”

The tower as a billboard was a turnoff to association board member Aron Collons. “It’s pretty high. And I wasn’t aware there would be signs on it until someone asked,” he said.

Another director, Rhoda Rand, said the signs could determine whether Homeowners of Encino decides to protest a city zoning variance that Netanel will seek for the tower so he can start construction this summer.

Encino Property Owners will do the same, predicted Lewis. “We’ll support it as proposed, provided he doesn’t add lights or hang banners on it. And there are no signs.”