Glendale Council Approves Happiest Office Park on Earth
On a unanimous vote, the City Council approved an environmental impact report and development agreement Wednesday for Walt Disney Co.’s $2-billion Grand Central Creative Campus.
The 125-acre complex will include sound stages and media-related production facilities, as well as headquarters for Disney’s Imagineering division that builds its theme park rides.
“We can only imagine how much it’s going to benefit all of Glendale,” Mayor Dave Weaver said, predicting the development will be a catalyst for other technology- and entertainment-related development near the 5 and 134 freeways.
The 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 will be refurbished as a visitor center under the development agreement.
The creative campus, which borders the DreamWorks SKG animation facility, is 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 development agreement, Disney will 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 could create up to 7,000 full-time jobs. About 5,000 workers are employed in the business park now, most of them Disney workers.
The project is expected to generate an estimated $400 million in new tax revenues to Glendale and Los Angeles County over 32 years.
Since the July 6 release of an environmental impact report, some residents have complained the city has rushed the review of the project and ignored potential problems, including increased traffic and noise, seismic hazards and presence of 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 has raised concerns of toxic contamination on the Disney creative campus property as have officials with the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.
City officials said Disney addressed those concerns in the final environmental impact report.
