Agency Acts to Force Sale of 11 Parcels for Center : North Hollywood: Officials will begin eminent domain proceedings to gain land for a market and retail complex they consider key to area’s redevelopment.

Proceeding with a troubled project it deems critical to revitalizing North Hollywood, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency moved Thursday to force the owners of 11 parcels to sell their land to the agency to provide a site for a supermarket and commercial space.

By a 5-0 vote, the CRA board began eminent domain proceedings to buy the land after the owners rejected the agency’s purchase offers as too low.

Construction of the 5.2-acre project at Vineland Avenue and Magnolia Boulevard, which would have a Ralphs supermarket as its anchor, is the agency’s top priority in North Hollywood, CRA officials have said.

The eminent domain proceedings will give the agency the land, and the question of compensation for the current owners will be hammered out in court proceedings.

The agency is expected to get possession of the properties by mid-May, said Don Spivack, CRA director of operations. But the final price may not be set for another year, he said.

Under redevelopment laws, the agency must help relocate the six residents and several businesses that now rent space on the properties.

Meanwhile, Bob Brewer, a top city budget official, said Thursday that the CRA board did not break city rules when it unilaterally voted Nov. 15 to spend $5 million of its own money to acquire the properties.

It was Brewer, a senior official in the City Administrative Office, who two weeks ago questioned whether the CRA’s decision required City Council endorsement under rules designed to tighten council control of the agency.

The council had approved the Vineland-Magnolia project when it included plans for Downey Savings & Loan to lend the $5 million to the agency. But when Downey balked, the CRA board voted to use its own money, without clearing the decision with the council. Some council members might want to consider the issue further, Brewer said, but he found no evidence that the agency had broken city law.

Although agency officials have held out hope that Downey Savings would change its mind, the thrift’s refusal to participate is apparently all but final, Spivack said.

Also, Spivack said the agency must decide soon if it will retain the currently designated developer of the Vineland-Magnolia project, which is to include the Ralphs market, a restaurant and 29,000 square feet of retail space.

North Hollywood Partners--which includes companies involved in the large, CRA-assisted Academy project in North Hollywood--was picked by the CRA to develop the Ralphs project after a bidding process.

But the developers have not yet deposited the required $200,000 with the CRA or met other conditions specified for the CRA to sell the Vineland-Magnolia site to the developer at a discount.

The original deal envisioned the developer paying the CRA $5 million for the site, even though it is expected that the CRA will have spent more than $7 million when the cost of purchasing and clearing the new parcels is added to the cost of the parcels it already owns.

“Within the next couple of weeks, we’ll have to decide if the developer is able to continue with us or whether we’ll have to do something else,” Spivack said.

The developer could not be reached Thursday for comment.

It is unclear if selecting another developer might delay the project. The CRA recently said it wants the project completed by fall 1992.