Big Employer Says Plans Hinge on Warner OK : Woodland Hills: 20th Century Insurance warns that it might relocate unless project is approved. Planners will vote on the development today.
On the eve of a key vote at City Hall, a Woodland Hills-based insurance company warned Wednesday that it may move out of Los Angeles if the controversial Warner Ridge project is not quickly approved.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Mayor Tom Bradley and the five-member Los Angeles Planning Commission, the chairman of 20th Century Insurance Co. said his firm will stay put only if it gets a 20-year lease in the proposed 690,000-square-foot Warner Ridge project.
Otherwise, the insurance company, which employs 2,100 people, will probably move its headquarters to an as-yet-undetermined suburb, Chairman Louis Foster wrote to the mayor and the commissioners in a letter obtained by The Times.
“If Warner Ridge is not able to provide 20th Century with the project as designed,” Foster wrote, “20th Century will have to turn to other sites outside of Los Angeles.”
The commission is poised to vote on the project today after a 2-2 deadlock last week. All five commissioners are expected to be present for the vote.
But Councilwoman Joy Picus, a fierce critic of the Warner Ridge project, dismissed the insurance company’s statement, saying it “smacks of the ultimate sleaze.”
“It’s not the least bit credible,” Picus said. “Every developer in Warner Center has come to me at some time and said they need so much in the way of entitlements to get Lou Foster as a tenant in their project and if they didn’t, Foster would move. . . . It’s laughable.”
Picus’ staff said she will be unable to attend today’s commission meeting because she will be out of state attending a family funeral.
Commissioner Fernando Torres-Gil, absent last week and the presumptive swing vote at today’s meeting, said Wednesday in an interview that the prospect of the city’s losing jobs or part of its tax base due to a major company moving outside its borders “weighs heavily on me.”
“I don’t want to say how I’m going to vote or what the effect of the company’s move might be, but I’m very concerned about preserving jobs and retaining the city’s economic potential,” Torres-Gil said. “We see jobs moving to Ventura County all the time.”
Torres-Gil voted for the project three years ago.
Jack Spound, head of the Spound Co., a 50% partner in the proposed Warner Ridge project, could not be reached for comment on the insurance company’s letter. Steve Afriat, a public relations consultant to the project, declined comment.
But Rick Dinon, senior vice president for corporate relations at 20th Century, denied that his company was threatening the city to influence Planning Commission deliberations.
Dinon said 20th Century has a mid-1995 deadline to move out of its existing head office, an 11-story building at 6301 Owensmouth Ave.
“Our intention . . . is to let people know that 20th Century has a specific window for taking action to find new space,” Dinon said. “Warner Ridge fits our time window and our space requirements. If that window closes, the most likely options are not in the city of Los Angeles.”
Although Foster’s letter suggests that the company has 2,100 employees in its home office, there are only about 850 now working out of this site, Dinon said. However, another 500 employees are located in satellite sites that could be consolidated at Warner Ridge, and the company expects to add employees in coming years, Dinon said.
In his letter, Foster said that the needs of his company, one of the nation’s fastest-growing insurance firms, have heavily shaped the design of the project, which was sharply criticized by several planning commissioners as unattractive at last week’s session.
“The proposed project may or may not represent others’ ideas of ideal design, but it is functional for 20th Century,” Foster wrote. “It fits our goal of continuing to supply low-cost insurance in an efficient manner.”
Dinon said Warner Ridge’s floor plans, load-bearing capacity, air conditioning and public accessibility to the company’s service center were among the features “custom made” for 20th Century.
Commission President Ted Stein, who has voted for the project previously, said that it is appropriate to consider economics as a factor in a planning case, especially one involving a substantial employer, although the foremost factors are “land use and compatibility.”
The Warner Ridge project has been the subject of a battle royal between the developer and Picus for several years. Picus initially persuaded the City Council to oppose the project. However, the developers won a series of key court victories in a $100-million lawsuit, forcing the city to allow the project to go forward.
Although its authority is limited by a court order enforcing the suit settlement, the city retains some authority over the project. Last week, planning commissioners critical of the project objected most to its design rather than its size or use.
