Studio Plan Could Cast North Hollywood in Lead
A Santa Monica shopping center developer is quietly pursuing plans to build a 43-acre studio complex in the NoHo Arts District of North Hollywood that would rival in size L.A.’s largest studios.
The proposal drafted by J. Allen Radford of JARCO/SLG&G; would turn a crushing demand for studio space in Los Angeles into a force for transforming the industrial area surrounding the yet-unfinished North Hollywood subway station.
In a neighborhood of auto shops and taco joints, Radford envisions a state-of-the-art studio facility with sound stages, offices, artist bungalows, plazas, gardens and a commissary, flanked by hotel and retail developments.
Though still in its infancy, North Hollywood Studios has the potential to be “one of the biggest independent studios in the world,” said Walter Beaumont, assistant project manager with the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA).
Public officials are heralding the proposal as key to the future of North Hollywood, long the stepchild of the southeast San Fernando Valley.
If successful, Radford’s plan could trigger a cascade of investment in North Hollywood and could create as many as 2,300 jobs, said Rockard Delgadillo, deputy to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
Riordan’s business team worked with Radford to expand an earlier, more modest proposal into a full-scale studio complex.
“This, along with the arts district, will be the anchor for what we envision North Hollywood to be--a center for arts and entertainment,” said Tom Henry, planning deputy for City Councilman Joel Wachs.
But some local property owners are refusing to sell their land to Radford, and have joined with critics vehemently opposed to the plan.
“I would rather keep this area industrial--a community needs a good [industrial] base,” said Richard Gulbranson, who has declined to sell his property to Radford.
“Have you ever seen a movie studio that isn’t a walled-in compound?” asked Mildred Weller, a local businesswoman and longtime CRA opponent. “So what will this do for the community? Nothing.”
The owners have held on for years amid the dust and chaos of MTA construction to realize a profit from their properties, only to face the possibility of having them snatched away at the last moment by eminent domain, said Patrick Berberian, president of California Art Products.
“It’s not fair,” he said.
For years, the CRA has been trying to redevelop North Hollywood with only tepid success. Although a subculture of live theaters thrives there among the auto shops, many of its street scapes remain a collage of aging masonry, peeling paint, litter and corrugated steel. Even the CRA’s offices are housed behind wrought-iron gates and defaced with graffiti.
CRA officials had planned to spend at least another 12 years trying to change the face of North Hollywood. But Radford’s proposal could sweep all those plans aside in one fell swoop: by creating a mixed-use commercial, entertainment-related hub just over the mountains from Hollywood.
Radford has been negotiating with a potential anchor tenant: Hollywood Center Studios, which now leases out space to production companies at its facility in Hollywood, at Bronson Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.
He is also in escrow on several properties in the area, including a strip of earthquake-damaged buildings on Lankershim Boulevard between Chandler Boulevard and Weddington Street, Beaumont said.
A spokeswoman for Radford’s company declined comment on the plans, saying it is too early to talk publicly. Radford has sought to keep a low profile, in part because of his efforts to buy local properties, said Beaumont.
Executives for Hollywood Center Studios did not return phone calls. However, Beaumont said he has received a letter from Hollywood Center Studios stating their interest in the project.
Delgadillo said the company wants to expand.
Officials familiar with Radford’s background say he is a longtime Los Angeles-area developer with a solid track record in retail developments.
In a colorful packet presented to the CRA, Radford laid out plans for 393,000 square feet of office support and multimedia buildings, 62,000 square feet of talent bungalows and a lodge, 222,000 square feet of sound stages, 120,000 square feet of production offices, and 30,000 square feet of equipment rental and storage shops.
The complex would cover an area roughly bordered by Lankershim Boulevard, Vineland Avenue, Burbank Boulevard and McCormick Street--in essence, the heart of downtown North Hollywood, and just east of what will become the subway station.
Working in Radford’s favor is pent-up demand for studio space stemming from a shortage of sound stages throughout the region. Existing studios are booked for months in advance, and production companies have been scrambling to lease warehouses and airplane hangars in far-flung locales.
Radford’s idea “is not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Seth Dudley of the commercial real estate company Julien J. Studley. “But it’s definitely a gamble.”
As a location for shooting, North Hollywood would be hard to beat, at least from the viewpoint of one potential customer:
“Because there is such a dire need for space, if someone did do something in North Hollywood,” said Jack O’Neill, vice president of facilities for NBC in Burbank, “that would be attractive to us.”
But numerous other obstacles stand in Radford’s way.
Studio projects are notoriously hard to finance because banks look askance at lending on projects that may only be leased on a month-to-month basis.
Unlike Universal City, Burbank and Studio City, North Hollywood has been stubbornly resistant to the wave of entertainment-industry glitz that has engulfed neighborhoods around it. It remains a collection of small industrial buildings with low ceilings that are ill-suited to the needs of production.
Most problematic of all, downtown North Hollywood is divided into small parcels spread among multiple property owners. At its most ambitious, Radford’s plan would require assembling the properties of as many as 100 different owners, Beaumont said.
This, what brokers call the “assemblage problem,” is a dilemma blamed for stalling redevelopment of vast tracts of L.A.’s aging industrial core.
“Getting together 40 owners is very difficult,” Dudley said. “It makes all kinds of sense in terms of the studios’ needs, but it doesn’t make sense in terms of what it takes for development of major areas.”
Radford may need the CRA to overcome this hurdle. The agency could help leverage the purchase of property, and in a potentially controversial move, it could employ its powers to condemn property on the developer’s behalf, Beaumont said.
“The political repercussions would be huge,” Dudley said.
The City Council today will consider a proposal to seek grant and loan money from the federal government to help push forward the North Hollywood Studios plan.
The CRA has contacted other property owners and business operators in the area, seeking to gauge whether any would want to join in a partnership with Radford or sell land to him.
But the CRA has not so far agreed to Radford’s request to enter into exclusive negotiations.
Instead, the agency will seek competing proposals from other developers who might also have visions for North Hollywood redevelopment.
“Our real hope is quite frankly that we get many good development proposals, and through that process, we choose a very good project,” said the CRA’s Beaumont.
Regardless of who ultimately develops North Hollywood Studios though, it is clear that Radford’s proposal has jump-started hopes for North Hollywood’s next era. Said Beaumont: “Something will come out of it.”
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
NoHo Studio Plan
A struggling commercial section of North Hollywood is the proposed site of a major production facility. The first section to be built under the proposal would include more than five acres of sound studios.
Plan includes, in square footage:
General office and support buildings: 393,000
Sound stages: 222,000
Production offices: 222,000
Bungalows and talent lodging: 62,000
Rental equipment storage: 30,000
Commissary: 20,000
