Glendale Council OKs $2-Billion Disney Campus

Plans for Walt Disney Co.’s $2-billion “creative campus,” which will house sound stages, production facilities and thousands of new workers, won unanimous approval Wednesday from the Glendale City Council.

Predicting that the 25-acre development will be a catalyst for other technology- and entertainment-related development near the Golden State and Ventura freeways, Mayor Dave Weaver said, “We can only imagine how much it’s going to benefit all of Glendale.”

The Grand Central Creative Campus will replace an office-industrial park built in the early 1960s. From 1928 to 1959, the land was occupied by the old Grand Central Air Terminal, the region’s first major airport.

The old terminal building still stands, and would be refurbished as a visitor center under the development agreement approved Wednesday.

The creative campus also will house the headquarters for Disney’s Imagineering Division, which builds its theme-park rides. It will border the DreamWorks SKG animation facility and be part of the 750-acre San Fernando Redevelopment Corridor, designed in 1992 to attract media, technology and entertainment companies to the city.

The council’s decision followed more than two hours of presentations and community comment.

Under the agreement, Disney would be allowed to develop up to 5.9 million square feet of new buildings.

Disney executives have described the project as a neighborhood-friendly development of four- to six-story buildings, though zoning could allow buildings of up to 10 stories.

Glendale officials say the project will allow for creation of 7,000 new full-time jobs. About 5,000 workers are employed in the business park now, most of them Disney workers.

The project also would generate about $400 million in new tax revenues for Glendale and Los Angeles County over a 32-year period.

Since the July 6 release of an environmental impact report, some local residents have complained the city rushed the review of the project and ignored potential problems including increased traffic and noise, seismic hazards and potentially dangerous chemicals buried at the site.

The heavily industrialized east San Fernando Valley, including parts of Burbank, Glendale and North Hollywood, was declared a Superfund cleanup site in 1986 because of soil and ground water contamination.

The state Department of Toxic Substances Control raised concerns of toxic contamination on the property, as did officials with the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

City officials said Disney addressed those concerns in the final environmental impact report.

“It is a win-win every which way you look at it,” Councilman Sheldon Baker said. “It makes a great deal of sense.”