Critic Claims L-Shaped Building in Studio City May Collapse

A political battle over a controversial office building under construction in a Studio City residential area is turning scientific.

Opponents of the three-story commercial project in the 4100 block of Sunswept Drive said Thursday that they have scientific evidence that the hill beneath the new building “will give way within a year.”

That contention was immediately disputed by the building’s designer and Los Angeles city officials. Earlier this week they dismissed allegations that the structure is being illegally constructed and should be ordered torn down or turned into residential condominiums.

The $500,000 L-shaped office building partially wraps around an apartment house and blocks the view of a house in a hillside neighborhood south of Ventura Boulevard.

Mort Allen, who owns the apartment house and a row of retail shops down the hill from the office building site, has led the attack on the new building.

Allen said he was told this week “by one of the finest geologists in California” that the hill below the new office and above his shops is in danger of collapsing because of the new building’s construction.

“The hillside between Sunswept and Ventura is critical soil,” Allen said. Unless the new building has “40-foot caissons to bedrock, the entire hill . . . will give way within a year,” he said.

Allen said the geologist told him that his shops at the bottom of the hill are “almost worthless and possibly unsafe to have tenants occupy.” The shops house his real estate office, a boutique, a seat-cover shop and a restaurant.

Allen’s geologist, Arthur R. Brown of Seal Beach, could not be contacted Thursday.

But city safety experts and the building’s architect denied that the hill and the new office building are unsafe.

“There’s no danger of collapse. The building’s safe. It’s built to code,” said Robert Kline, a principal commercial property inspector for the city Department of Building and Safety. “There is no indication the hill is going to collapse.”

Inspection Requested

Kline said he inspected the Sunswept Drive building at the request of City Councilman Mike Woo’s office after Allen complained that it was illegally constructed and lacked proper drainage and parking.

In a Jan. 26 letter to Woo, Allen demanded that the councilman use his influence to block occupancy of the building until 11 alleged shortcomings at the project were corrected.

In his report to Woo, Kline refuted each of Allen’s allegations, said Julie Jaskol, a spokeswoman for Woo.

Allen said a geologic report prepared for the office project differs from previous ground studies done in the area.

A 1972 geologic report discussed a slope failure on the hill below the office site. It noted that the failure occurred when a retaining wall collapsed and “saturated clay soils liquefied and flowed against” Allen’s shops.

That landslide “extinguished the flame of a water heater and a gas explosion further damaged the structure,” it noted. The collapse left a “failure scar some 20 feet in length and about 5 feet in height” across the slope, the report stated.

But a 1987 slope stability report done by a different geologist for the office project concluded that the hillside areas are “well-established and show no indication of past slope failures.”

The report noted that the slopes “have a higher than minimum safety factor . . . and should be considered safe.”

A companion report, prepared by the project’s geologists, called for a foundation for the building that would contain footings extending two feet into the ground.

Albert Mikaelian, whose architectural firm designed the building and plans to move into it when it is finished, said there is no need for 40-foot caissons extending down to bedrock, as Allen’s geologist recommended.

“The soils engineers found good soil, absolutely outstanding soil,” Mikaelian said Thursday. “Our footings are to city standards.

“I can’t believe this man,” he said of Allen. “He will try anything.”

Association Ally

But Allen appeared to have an ally Thursday in Polly Ward, president of the Studio City Residents Assn. Ward was asked by Allen to use her group’s clout to persuade the city to take a closer look at the hillside’s stability.

“If Mort has a geology report that says something different from what the city has concluded, we’ll go back to the councilman’s office and ask them to look at it,” Ward said.

“It is my concern that what he says about the slope may be true and it could give way. That whole hillside is geologically unstable. When they tamper with that hill, it bothers me a lot.”

Jaskol said Woo’s office will dispatch city inspectors to the site to take another look if that is what the association wants.

“We respond to all reasonable concerns,” Jaskol said. “Polly Ward and her group are reasonable.”