Developer Selected for Valley Plaza
A city agency selected developer Jerry Snyder on Thursday for a $140-million expansion and renovation of Valley Plaza shopping center in North Hollywood, touting the project as an economic boon for the east San Fernando Valley.
The Community Redevelopment Agency board also moved toward use of eminent domain if owners of the 37 properties in the shopping center do not want to sell.
“It looks excellent,” board Chairwoman Peggy Moore said. “It provides the opportunity for an area that has been going downhill for a long, long time to be revitalized.”
J.h Snyder Co. was recommended by agency staff members after a review of bids from other developers. The board decided to spend six months negotiating with Snyder. Agency officials said Snyder has the financial ability to do the project with little or no agency subsidy.
The project would nearly double employment at the 47-acre outdoor shopping center to 2,228 jobs by building 828,000 square feet of stores, theaters and office buildings after razing some of the existing structures built in the 1940s.
As the shopping center aged and shoppers flocked to newer indoor malls, businesses suffered. The Northridge earthquake pushed some businesses over the edge. About 30% of the storefronts are vacant.
Snyder has brought in the architect who did Universal CityWalk to design a modern, stylized project that would include a multiscreen movie theater, bookstores, restaurants, plazas, fountains and stores. Firms that have expressed interest in the project include Gap and Old Navy, according to Clifford Goldstein, a partner in the development firm.
“That part of the Valley is so underserved from a retail standpoint,” Goldstein said, adding that potential tenants have provided verbal commitments for 500,000 of the 750,000 square feet of retail space planned.
“It will be a centerpiece of the east San Fernando Valley,” Goldstein told the board.
Several property owners in the mall told the redevelopment board they support the project, which includes land north and south of Victory Boulevard between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and the Hollywood Freeway.
“We believe the project will help stop the blight and restore the image of Valley Plaza,” said Dean E. Dennis, an attorney for Sears, Roebuck & Co., which renovated its store in the plaza after the Northridge earthquake and would be allowed to remain as the new mall’s anchor.
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There remain complications, including the Los Angeles Unified School District’s listing of 17 acres in the shopping center as one of 33 possible sites in the East Valley for new schools.
“Obviously, I would prefer not to have a school there if we have an opportunity to bring jobs to that area,” school board member Caprice Young said. “But we have to keep all of the alternatives on the list at this time.”
Steven Soboroff, who chairs a committee monitoring school district construction, said he asked for a study of Valley Plaza as an alternative to a costly proposal to use the nearby Robinsons-May property in Laurel Plaza.
Soboroff said there are alternative sites, and that he supports taking Valley Plaza off the school district’s list, as long as Snyder’s project goes forward.
Lillian Burkenheim, the redevelopment agency’s project manager, said she is working with the school district to identify other possible sites for new schools.
The San Fernando Valley Federation, in a letter to council members this week, called for a moratorium on all new redevelopment projects until after a study of Valley secession is completed.
Gordon Murley, president of the homeowner federation, said new redevelopment projects would take money from city services and infrastructure, mortgaging the future of any new Valley city.
