Housing, Retail Space Share a Roof in Burbank Village

A building in Burbank that brings together such disparate uses as senior housing, a nightclub, a public parking garage, a ballet school and a Brazilian restaurant has reached 100% occupancy, its developer reports.

Located in the Burbank Village section in downtown Burbank, the $25-million Media Village project is an example of the growing acceptance in Southern California of mixed-use development, which combines residential units and commercial space under one roof.

City planners have embraced mixed-use projects in the belief that full-time residents will help support local businesses, while providing pedestrian-filled streets that make areas seem both inviting and safe to shoppers and theatergoers.

Built by Glendale-based Gangi Development on a site formerly occupied by a Pic ‘N’ Save outlet, Media Village contains 146 units of senior housing, 55,000 square feet of retail and office space and 500 parking spaces, most of which are available to the general public.

The city’s redevelopment agency contributed $4.5 million of its low-income housing fund to the project, which obliged the developer to reserve all the housing units for low- and moderate-income renters. The housing portion of the project has been open since April 1999.

Media Village reflects the changing nature of the eight-block area previously known as the Golden Mall. The pedestrian-only mall opened in the late 1960s but later fell on hard times as the city-owned project experienced weak sales.

Burbank took a series of actions in the mid-1980s to revive its almost deserted downtown. The city closed the Golden Mall and reopened the streets to cars.

The development of an AMC multiplex cinema, the Media Center Mall and a “power center” anchored by IKEA and Virgin Records brought shoppers and nighttime activity back to downtown Burbank, just as a similar combination of retail and movie theaters helped revive Third Street in Santa Monica and the Old Pasadena area.

Today, the area known as Burbank Village has grown from an all-retail environment into a more rounded downtown district, where housing, retail and office space coexist.

One of the largest office tenants is Cartoon Network, the cable television channel, which recently leased an entire building adjacent to Media Village.

The design of the senior housing was influenced by Southern California’s mild weather, said Mark Gangi, a USC-trained architect who serves as vice president of design to the family-owned development firm.

“In studying senior projects, we found that most are very internalized,” the architect said. “With our climate, it make sense to do some open-air hallways.” The open hallways not only increase natural light in the apartments, but also encourage residents to socialize.

The developer met resistance from some Burbank residents last year when the company first proposed combining a nightclub, Gitana, in the same building as the senior housing.

The building’s residents cannot hear the pulsating beat of nightclub music, however, because a level of parking, sandwiched by a pair of 12-inch-thick concrete-slab floors, intervene between the club and the apartments.

“We have a tendency to isolate older people,” said Frank Gangi, president of Gangi Development, who added that many seniors “love downtown life. They love to see people, and to connect with others.”

Media Village’s unorthodox tenant mix met with incredulity among Burbank residents when first proposed a few years ago, said Robert M. Tague, the city’s community development director. “Most people thought it was insane” to combine housing with entertainment uses, he said.

The combination of nightclubs, restaurants and senior housing, however, has led to “a lot more activity at night” in Burbank Village, Tague added. “That project creates more vibrancy than a mom-and-pop clothing store that opens at 9 and closes at 6,” he said.

The developer has also shown some creativity in devising ways to enliven the alley, now known as the Pedestrian Paseo, at the rear of the project.

Although most merchants would shun alley locations, the developer leased space to a ballet school, and provided a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that allows passersby to watch the ballerinas at their exercises.

“The proprietor of the ballet school is very pleased” with the glass wall, said Frank Gangi, “because parents of the dancers often watch the dancers from the Paseo.”