Border Wars Raging Over Lincoln Blvd. Development

Weekdays and warm weekends, the story is the same. Gridlock. Commuters, tourists, beach-goers and shoppers clog Lincoln Boulevard, the primary north-south artery through the beach communities north of Los Angeles International Airport.

Undaunted, developers large and small are vigorously pursuing plans to transform Lincoln into a densely packed commercial and residential corridor.

What they want to build along a four-mile stretch of roadway from Westchester to Santa Monica is staggering: office space equal to nearly half that in downtown Los Angeles; enough retail space to house four Westside Pavilion malls; more housing units than in all of Hermosa Beach. The five largest projects alone would need twice as much parking as the airport.

Governments and builders are racing to secure development rights before the last remaining capacity in the area’s road system vanishes. The sprint from the drawing table to the construction site has sparked friction among cities and agencies trying to protect their neighborhoods, their beaches, their streets and their tax rolls.

“We are in a new era,” Los Angeles developer Jerome Snyder told the Los Angeles Planning Commission last month. “Cities are fighting cities and developers are fighting developers.”

Los Angeles is battling Culver City over a shopping mall. The state Coastal Commission is stepping outside its boundaries to join in that fight. County officials are grousing about high-rises near Marina del Rey. And Santa Monica is monitoring neighboring projects that threaten to clog its arteries.

“It’s frightening the amount of development that’s going on out there,” said Caltrans senior transportation engineer David Gilstrap. Lincoln Boulevard, he said, “is just about to be clobbered permanently. . . . You are just about assured there will be gridlock.”

As the development frenzy continues, there are faint signs that neighboring cities are beginning to understand that business as usual cannot continue without serious side effects.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley told a forum of Westside mayors and developers Tuesday that cooperation among cities is essential to solve the pressing transportation and air pollution problems.

“There is no way that we can simply plan and develop our own cities without regard to our neighbors and indeed the whole region,” Bradley said. “The days of freewheeling development are over.”

But such words have a hollow ring to Los Angeles’ neighbors.

Beverly Hills Mayor Max Salter complained at the Century City forum that Los Angeles persists in approving major developments just outside his city without regard to the environmental consequences.

When forum moderator William Fulton accused Los Angeles of having “a rather sordid history” on development, Bradley replied: “None of us can be so smug as to think that we are the good guys and they are bad.”

Along the Lincoln Boulevard corridor, critics say, unfettered growth is making a case for regional planning.

“The history of Los Angeles has been a history of extreme political fragmentation,” said Edward Soja, professor of urban and regional planning at UCLA. “Both sides in the competition know darn well that the solution to these kinds of problems is going to require a loss of some sovereignty.”

Border wars such as these rage elsewhere in Southern California. From Ventura to Costa Mesa, cities are suing cities over the impact of development on neighboring communities.

“There is going to have to be a change in the working relationships between and among cities on development,” said Mark Pisano, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments.

Pisano and Soja agreed that the fight between neighboring communities is fueled by an intense competition for new sources of tax revenue.

The conflict is particularly hot between Los Angeles and Culver City over plans for construction of the Marina Place shopping center just east of Lincoln Boulevard.

Like a giant magnet, the planned $159-million mall at the western tip of Culver City is expected to draw motorists from miles around, worsening traffic as far away as Santa Monica.

The shopping mall is just one of several projects that could dramatically change the look of the Lincoln corridor. Developers want to build more than 13 million square feet of office space, 2.5 million square feet of retail space, 14,000 apartments and condominiums and more than 6,000 hotel rooms.

While sharply critical of Marina Place, Los Angeles officials look more favorably on nearby Channel Gateway, a high-rise community of offices and more than 1,050 condominiums and apartments that Snyder wants to build at Marina del Rey’s doorstep.

To the south, the multibillion-dollar Playa Vista project--one of the largest developments in Los Angeles history--is planned for more than 880 acres between Marina del Rey and the Westchester Bluffs.

And on the north side of the Los Angeles airport, work will soon begin on a major new business center with 4.5 million square feet of offices, hotels and support facilities on 240 acres of airport property.

Those are just the big projects. More than 80 smaller developments are planned within a two-mile radius of Marina del Rey, many of them in or near the Lincoln Boulevard corridor.

“The square-foot totals are just astronomical,” said Ted Reed, director of Los Angeles County’s Department of Beaches and Harbors, which oversees the county-owned marina.

County officials worry that traffic generated by the new projects will choke off access to the marina, threaten its status as a major source of county revenue, and undermine the county’s plans for future development there.

As it is, driving in the area is hardly a picnic. On July 4 last year, for example, traffic around the marina ground to a standstill. “It was chaos here,” Reed said. “People were just getting out of their cars and leaving them.”

The headlong rush to build continues nonetheless.

Last month, after approving Marina Place, council members in Culver City went a step further, ratifying an agreement to lock in development rights before a city election April 10 can shift the balance of power from pro-development to slow-growth.

Before doing so, the council heard the pleas of neighborhood leaders such as Charles Blum, who urged officials to stop engaging in a city-versus-city competition.

The 1-million square-foot project would include a Nordstrom and a Bullock’s, 150 other shops, restaurants and a six-screen movie theater.

The environmental impact report for the mall predicts that it will generate 31,000 vehicle trips during weekdays, 40,030 on Saturdays, and as many as 56,000 on Saturdays during the holiday shopping season. At peak periods on Saturdays, the report says, mall traffic will occupy 25% of the already congested intersection of Lincoln and Washington boulevards.

Gilstrap predicted that the resulting congestion would lead to a 30% to 50% increase in accidents along the four-mile stretch of Lincoln from the Marina Expressway to the Santa Monica Freeway.

But Sam Ross, traffic consultant to the mall’s developers, Prudential Insurance Co. and Melvin Simon & Associates, painted a more optimistic picture. With $4 million in road improvements that Prudential plans to make, Ross said, the effect of Marina Place can be minimized.

Ross attributed the dire assessment in the environmental impact report to a “very worst-case analysis” that assumes many surrounding speculative projects will be built.

However, the report also concluded that Marina Place’s impact on traffic and air quality cannot be entirely mitigated. Under the California Environmental Quality Act, the City Council of Culver City had to formally declare last month that overriding considerations in favor of the mall--economic and other benefits to the city--outweighed possible harm to the environment.

Within days, a new and unexpected player entered the battle against Marina Place: the California Coastal Commission, which regulates building near the beach. Even though the Marina Place site lies 250 feet outside the coastal zone, the commission decided to file a friend-of-the-court brief in a lawsuit that Los Angeles and the Venice Town Council filed against Culver City challenging Marina Place.

It was the first time in the commission’s 13-year history that it intervened in a land development case outside the coastal zone.

“One of the main interests of the Coastal Act is to preserve public access,” Coastal Commissioner Madelyn Glickfeld said. “Apparently, Culver City has decided that public access (to the beach) is not a coastal resource.”

Culver City officials insist that they took into consideration the impact that Marina Place would have on beach access.

Meanwhile, county officials are frustrated over nearby Culver City and Los Angeles development because the county’s own expansion plans for Marina del Rey are stalled. The Coastal Commission has required a new bypass road before any significant new development occurs at the marina.

Residents of nearby areas of Los Angeles, however, have long objected to a marina bypass, fearing that it would drown their neighborhood in traffic, noise and air pollution.

Determined to remove the obstacle, county officials have been quietly drafting plans for a $22-million “accessway” that would carry the Marina Expressway over Lincoln Boulevard and onto a new roadway that would wipe out most of the marina’s Admiralty Park.

County officials and private marina developers also complain about the danger that rival developments pose to the marina’s own development plans.

Their immediate target is Channel Gateway--a complex of two 16-story condominium buildings, an office building and four-story apartment buildings.

“It will absolutely kill us, kill development in Marina del Rey,” marina developer Jerry Epstein said of Channel Gateway.

A quiet but very interested observer of the fight over remaining traffic capacity is Maguire Thomas Partners, developer of the biggest project of all, Playa Vista, still months away from construction.

“Obviously anything that threatens the capacity of Lincoln Boulevard is of concern,” said senior partner Nelson C. Rising.

DEVELOPMENT ON LINCOLN CORRIDOR

From the beach communities to LAX, Lincoln Boulevard is often packed with traffic. Four major proposed developments threaten to worsen the road jam, along with a number of smaller projects: 1. MARINA PLACE--Culver City

Shopping mall with two major department stores, 150 shops, restaurants and six-screen movie theater.

18.3-acre site.

1.05 million square feet of space--50% larger than Westside Pavilion.

4,742 parking spaces.

Status: Culver City Council has approved, but project faces legal challenges. Construction date uncertain. 2. CHANNEL GATEWAY--Venice, adjacent to Marina del Rey.

High-rise office, condominium and apartment complex.

16-acre site.

1,056 residential units, with 512 condos in two 16-story towers, and 544 apartments in four-story buildings.

300,000-square-foot office building, 15,000 square feet of retail.

3,470 parking spaces.

Status: Awaiting Los Angeles Planning Commission approval, but site cleanup is already under way. 3. PLAYA VISTA--Playa del Rey

Office, commercial, residential, hotel and marina complex.

887 acres, including Ballona Wetlands.

11,750 residential units in buildings up to eight stories tall.

5 million square feet of office space; 720,000 square feet of retail space; 2,400 hotel rooms.

Small-craft marina of more than 40 acres with 750 boat slips.

More than 25,000 parking spaces.

Status: Environmental impact report being prepared; construction unlikely before 1992. 4. LAX NORTHSIDE--Westchester

Business park and commercial center.

240-acre site.

4.5 million square feet, including low- and mid-rise office buildings, airport support facilities, restaurants and some retail.

1,400 hotel rooms.

13,600 parking spaces.

Status: Approved by Board of Airport Commissioners. Preliminary site work expected to start later this spring. OTHER NEARBY DEVELOPMENTS PROPOSED OR UNDER CONSTRUCTION WESTCHESTER

Howard Hughes Center, at Sepulveda Boulevard and Centinela Avenue: Major office and hotel complex adjacent to San Diego Freeway; 2.7 million square feet of office space and 600 hotel rooms. Approved, awaiting construction.

Loyola Marymount University, at 80th Street and Loyola Boulevard: Campus expansion, including new administration building, business school building, 68 townhouse units, 200 apartments, and a 300-bed dormitory. Awaiting city approval.

Apartment complex, at 9000 Lincoln Boulevard: 476 apartment units in 12-story building. Approved by city, under construction.

MARINA DEL REY AND VICINITY

Intensive redevelopment of county-owned marina properties: Coastal plan calls for an additional 740 hotel rooms, 460-seat restaurant, 1,500 apartments, 200,000 square feet of office space, 14,000 square feet of retail space and 943 boat slips. Development cannot occur until a Marina bypass road is built.

Daniel Freeman Hospital, at 4650 Lincoln Boulevard: Expansion of 68,000 square feet of office space, chapel and parking facilities; approved by City of Los Angeles, construction date uncertain.

Marina Marketplace, at Maxella and Glencoe avenues: 200,000-square-foot shopping center/theater complex; completed and partially occupied.

SANTA MONICA

Maguire Thomas hotel and office complex, at 1733-1746 Ocean Avenue: 175-room hotel and 88,300 square feet of office, retail and restaurant space. Awaiting construction.

Santa Monica Aquarium, at Santa Monica Pier: 64,000-square-foot aquarium with support facilities, restaurant, theater and retail space. Environmental impact report in preparation.

VENICE

Venice Renaissance Center, at Main Street and Rose Avenue: 89 residential units, 33,500 square feet of commercial and retail uses; completed and partially occupied.