Council OKs Warner Bros. Building Plan : Renovation: The 11-acre project is estimated to cost $75 million. The Formosa Cafe will be saved, but five other historic structures will be demolished.
The West Hollywood City Council on Monday approved the outlines of a complete renovation of the Warner Bros. Hollywood Studios, a massive project that many say is crucial to the economic salvation of the city’s east end.
Although some details must be worked out, the 4-0 vote to endorse the plan in concept was hailed as a mutual victory for the studio and a city eager to keep its biggest show-business tenant. Even onetime critics of the project praised studio executives for being willing to drop plans to destroy the historic Formosa Cafe.
“Everyone has won. The studio got what they wanted. West Hollywood is going to get increased business and the Formosa is going to be saved,” said Eddie Martell, a member of Friends of the Formosa, which had protested plans to raze the 50-year-old cafe to make way for a planned parking garage.
The project met remarkably little resistance as it sped through the city approval process. Two other Westside studio-expansion proposals--Fox Studios in Century City and Sony Pictures’ studio in Culver City--have moved much more slowly, due in part to neighborhood opposition.
“For a project of its size, it has gone amazingly smoothly,” said Jean Marie Gath, planning director for the Warner project architects, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates of Los Angeles.
Final approval of the 11-acre project, estimated to cost up to $75 million, is expected by March. The four-phase plan calls for demolition of five historic buildings and construction of four sound stages, two office buildings, more than 100,000 square feet of post-production facilities and two parking garages. The studio plans to begin work next year, Gath said.
The development plan includes improvements to the sidewalks and lighting on Santa Monica Boulevard along the studio’s front wall and will add space for three or four stores, which officials see as a way to attract foot traffic and cut prostitution in the crime-infested area.
Councilman John Heilman pressed Warner planners to come up with even more ideas for expanding trade there, such as newsstands or flower merchants. But Jack Foreman, Warner vice president and general manager, said there probably is too little room along the wall for additional businesses.
Foreman also rebuffed a proposal by Councilwoman Abbe Land to require the studio to hire West Hollywood residents first for production work, saying union rules govern studio hiring. Foreman said outside production companies using Warner facilities bring their own employees.
“You put us in a very awkward position,” Foreman said. “To make it mandatory to set up any kind of program for West Hollywood people, it’s terribly inconsistent with the way we operate.”
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For the most part, though, studio officials found themselves awash in praise over their newfound conciliatory approach to resident concerns, chiefly the Formosa Cafe.
The outcry over the Formosa and plans to destroy many other historic buildings prompted Warner executives to replace its architect and hire a consulting firm to act as a mediator between the studio, residents and community groups.
The studio later agreed to save the restaurant, which was frequented by such stars as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe. It will move the cafe intact about 250 feet and keep it within the studio complex. The newest plan also leaves standing most of the lot’s 20 historic buildings. Some preservationists have complained, though, that the project will destroy enough old buildings to jeopardize the studio’s future eligibility as a national historic district.
Other features of the overhaul answered concerns over the studio’s appearance. Passersby will be able to peek through grated wall openings onto a “Howard Hughes Court” to commemorate the late movie mogul’s private entrance. A parking garage on Santa Monica Boulevard will sport three-dimensional billboards depicting old and contemporary Warner movies. Twin towers connected by an arched footbridge will straddle Formosa Avenue.
City leaders and east-end activists are hoping that the renovation will jump-start economic activity in the neighborhood through jobs and sales taxes. A major economic force in the neighborhood, Warner Bros. paid $93 million in 1991 to West Hollywood vendors and employees who are city residents, said James Suhr, vice president for real estate operations.
The studio will pay the city a so-called benefit fee of about $670,000 in exchange for exceeding normal height limits on the twin towers, a parking garage and a 12-story office building inside the complex. The studio property is one of several large-scale sites in the city where higher-than-normal buildings are allowed if the development provides a public benefit.
The studio will also pay $2.2 million in fees earmarked for affordable housing, transportation, open space and child care.
