Redevelopment Board Clears Way for High-Rise Plan : North Hollywood: Officials certify the environmental impact report for the proposed 22-story office building.
A development company that plans to build one of the San Fernando Valley’s tallest office buildings in North Hollywood won a major approval this week that puts its project one important step closer to a construction date.
Officials with the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency hailed the project as evidence that CRA’s efforts to revitalize North Hollywood are starting to bear fruit.
On a 4-0 vote, the CRA board on Thursday certified the environmental impact report for the proposed 22-story Weddington Plaza project.
Planned for a two-acre site at the southwest corner of Lankershim and Chandler boulevards, the project has now secured all its major governmental approvals, said Don Spivack, a top CRA official.
“Now, it’s just building permits and financing,” he said.
Executives with Long Asset Management Co., the Torrance-based developer, declined to comment on the CRA decision.
Weddington Plaza will be the first commercial project built in the North Hollywood redevelopment area without financial assistance from the CRA, said Spivack, a director of operations for the agency.
“It’s a very positive statement,” he said.
The three other commercial projects built in the redevelopment area have required CRA subsidies--the Hewlett-Packard building; The Academy, a mixed-use development now under construction that includes headquarters of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the Vineland-Magnolia shopping center, which is still on the drawing boards.
The 740-acre redevelopment area was established in 1979 to fight blight in North Hollywood.
The Weddington Plaza would be among the tallest buildings in the San Fernando Valley, Spivack said.
Taller office buildings are the 36-story Universal City Plaza building, the 25-story Warner Center Plaza III building and the American Savings Plaza building, also 22 stories, but still taller than the proposed Weddington Plaza.
According to the environmental impact report, the project includes 400,000 square feet of office space, 20,000 square feet of ground floor retail space and 1,225 parking spaces--including two levels of subterranean parking and five levels of above-ground parking.
The report said extra traffic generated by the project could be controlled after the developer installs traffic improvements, such as wider streets and computerized traffic signals at three intersections.
The office tower will rise next to a proposed Metro Rail station.
Entrance portals to the station--planned to open in 2001--are to be placed at the northeast and southeast corners of Lankershim and Chandler boulevards.
