Still No Deal on Project Near Subway

The city’s choice to rebuild the area around the North Hollywood subway station has begun demolition of derelict buildings nearby, but has failed for a second time to meet redevelopment deadlines.

Despite a year of talks, developer J. Allen Radford and the Community Redevelopment Agency have not yet struck a development agreement required before construction can begin on a 1.8-million-square-foot project that includes six office towers, a 14-screen movie theater, 250-room hotel, health club and 230,000 square feet of stores and restaurants.

“I’m very concerned,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, whose district includes North Hollywood. “The question is can the developer get it together? We’re going to give him one more chance but that is it. If he can’t do it, we will go with someone else.”

With the subway station set to open June 24 with largely vacant lots nearby, some frustrated community leaders are calling for the city to abandon the Radford proposal and find someone else to build the project on 22 acres south of the Red Line station.

City officials will seek an additional six months to work with Radford.

“They should find a new developer,” said Mildred Weller, a member of a committee set up by the city to oversee redevelopment in North Hollywood. “Otherwise this is going to drag out forever.”

Radford and redevelopment project manager Lillian Burkenheim said they are confident they will come up with an agreement by October so that construction can begin next year.

“I have no doubts that we will be successful,” Radford said Wednesday. “We have, without a doubt, the best piece of undeveloped property in the San Fernando Valley.”

Asked about the development agreement, Radford said, “We are very close.”

The CRA board voted in March 1999 to approve a six-month exclusive negotiation with Radford, with an option to automatically extend talks by 90 days. In confirming the authority, the City Council ordered that the agency provide periodic status reports identifying tenants and financing as the negotiations move toward an agreement.

Radford said he is still talking to potential tenants but is not ready to announce any signings. Financing has been arranged but cannot be finalized until an environmental impact report and development agreement are completed, he said.

Burkenheim said the authority to negotiate has expired within the past two weeks, and although Radford can continue his own work on the project, she cannot legally negotiate further until she gets an extension from the CRA board.

“We still need to get some agreement on the business points of how the development will happen,” she said.

Radford originally proposed a much larger project in 1998, but has since scaled back his plans to at least temporarily drop film sound stages from the development.

The change in the project was one reason negotiations have taken longer than expected, according to Burkenheim.

The talks have also been held up by the need for an environmental impact report, which is still in the works.

Burkenheim said she plans to go back to the agency board in a few weeks to ask for a six-month extension to resume negotiations.

In the meantime, as a show of good faith, Radford has begun demolition of nearly a block of vacant and boarded-up buildings on Lankershim Boulevard just south of the subway station.

The work should be completed before the subway opening so that people emerging from the station will not be greeted by a row of abandoned businesses, he said.

However, another proposal that would have moved an old diner onto the corner facing the subway station has fallen through because the owner of the business wanted a longer-term commitment, Burkenheim said.

Glenn Hoiby, who chairs the citizen panel advising the CRA, said the community does not have much choice but to wait for some development to begin in the area.