Burbank mayor highlights innovative companies, cities in State of the City address
Burbank Mayor Will Rogers is asking local residents to understand that the city needs to think in terms of decades when reviewing development projects.
Last Wednesday, the Burbank Chamber of Commerce hosted its annual State of the City luncheon at the convention center at the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel, where Rogers was featured in a 10-minute video that focused on some of the businesses in the city that he considers are “dreamers.”
In the video segment, Rogers visited Next Generation Esports, a production company that opened in 2014 and specializes in broadcasting and organizing competitive video-game events, also known as e-sports.
The video-game sector has been growing since then. Recently, video-game company Blizzard Entertainment opened its Blizzard Area Los Angeles venue located in the Burbank Studios, former home of “The Tonight Show.”
Rogers also made a stop in the video at Canon Burbank, the imaging and optical equipment specialist’s newest facility, which opened in July, where photographers and videographers can get their equipment repaired, and it serves as a resource for film studios in Burbank.
The mayor then mentioned Nickelodeon’s new 200,000-square-foot, five-story production complex, which opened in January. Instead of having its employees located in different offices across Southern California, Nickelodeon, which opened its original Burbank campus in 1998, decided to fortify its roots in the Media City and build a facility where its more than 700 employees can collaborate in a centralized location.
Coloredge, one of the largest visual-marketing companies in the country, was also highlighted in Rogers’ video. The company’s extensive portfolio includes Kraft, Barclays Center, Reebok, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Nike and Petco Park.
Rogers continued by saying in his video that public agencies can also be innovators. He talked about the High Line in New York City, a 1.5-mile elevated park that used to be an abandoned railway.
He also brought up Dokk1, a repurposed industrial site in Aarhus, Denmark, which houses a public library, two event halls and a 1,000-vehicle, automated parking facility.
Rogers stressed the importance of innovation and planning well into the future by using three examples that failed to do so. He talked about how Blockbuster eventually became obsolete as streaming services such as Netflix came into prominence.
Rogers also mentioned how retailer Sears, which back in its heyday was best known for its catalog, is now a company on the brink of going under, while online retailers such as Amazon have changed the way many people shop.
The mayor ended his video by saying that Burbank too has a chance to be an innovator for its residents by approving affordable-housing projects while protecting neighborhoods, improving transportation and creating more open space and parks for future generations.
“There’s an old Greek proverb that says, ‘Society grows great when people plant trees whose shade they will never sit in,’” Rogers said. “So join us and let’s plant a tree together.”
anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
