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L.A. and Culver City at War over each other's developments
May 1989
Showdown at the Straits of Prudential By Rex Frankel Members of the Venice Town Council voted 68-2 last April 13th to continue a lawsuit the group has filed against the developers of the Marina Place shopping mall, turning down a $9 million package of relief measures. The site is an 18 acre parcel which once was a Hughes Helicopter plant, located on Washington Blvd. just east of Lincoln Blvd. The first court date is May 30th. The suit charges that Culver City violated the State Environmental Quality Act and the Coastal Act when its council OK'd the massive project. DENSITY: Marina Place will be 1 million square feet total. How big is that? It's 1 and a half times the size of the Westside Pavillion mall, or roughly the same size as the Santa Monica Place Mall. TRAFFIC: All traffic for this monstrosity will enter and exit from Washington Blvd only. The Santa Monica and Westside malls, however, have street entrances on all four sides. The developer, Prudential Insurance Co. estimates the mall will attract 32,000 weekday vehicle trips, and 40,000 on weekends. HEIGHT: Marina Place will be 54 feet tall, three stories, except in the middle, where the theatres will be 74 feet tall. Marina Place will be a solid block of buildings. PARKING:--Look at the picture--do you see any of the 4600 parking spaces? Right--it's all underground or in a structure. One of the reasons the Culver City Council Oked the Marina Place last year was because "L.A. is building big projects just outside of our City limits, we get all the traffic and L.A. makes all the money". The Culver Planning Commission said "the impact of traffic from Marina Place would be insignificant when measured against the traffic generated by major developments OK'd by L.A. near the project site." What they are referring to is the Howard Hughes Center, a collection of 10 15-to 20 story towers to rise along Sepulveda Blvd. just south of the 405 Freeway, and just outside of Culver City limits. Now for some familiar history. A Coalition of Westchester residents groups fought the Hughes Center at City Hall. Culver City became concerned about this mess and joined the Coalition in appealing the City's OK of the Hughes Center. But suddenly, Culver officials backed out. Hughes Properties offered them $3 million in traffic mitigation fees, payable when the 10 buildings are finished--maybe 20 years from now. Culver officials took the money and ran in 1985. The Coalition filed suit against L.A. City and Hughes Properties and won on one minor point. Unfortunately, we didn't have the money or legal assistance Culver City could have provided, so we couldn't stop the whole project. Now, the tables are turned. The Venice Town Council is suing Culver City and Prudential, and L.A. City, under Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, has filed a companion suit. L.A. City is also paying for some of the most expensive legal research. Now if Culver City hadn't sold out it's own citizens and made a deal with Hughes, they wouldn't have the traffic problems that they now face when the rest of the Hughes Center goes up. Now, Prudential's Marina Place is one third the size of the Hughes Center. Prudential has offered Culver City $3 million in traffic fees--the same amount Culver officials took from the Hughes Center, but in reality, three times the fee per square foot of building area. Add it up--the Hughes developers paid one third the fees Prudential is paying. Yes, the Culvers got screwed and it's all our fault--at least in the warped opinion of developer-oriented Culver City Councilmembers. They believe, that, somehow, we L.A. residents could have stopped the approval of the Hughes Center. We tried, but the deck was stacked against us. Now for some innuendo....As Culver City officials point the blame at L.A. residents, and we point the blame at Culver City--the truth is--these developers have been working together for years. Curtis Rossiter was our Councilwoman Pat Russell's campaign manager and chief assistant for 20 years. In his last 2 years with Ms. Russell, Rossiter ran a consulting firm for developers, giving advice that only the campaign manager for the City Council President could give. Russell speedily gave the OK to the Hughes Center, Playa Vista, Hughes Aircraft headquarters and Continental City which had hired Rossiter. But Rossiter at the same time also worked for Prudential. Prudential also hired the same law firm to rep it that worked for Hughes Properties, Playa Vista and Continental Development: the firm of Latham and Watkins. Rossiter's firm, Urban Planning Consultants, helped formulate Russell's 1985 Coastal Transportation Plan, which foresaw massive road widening plans for Venice, Marina and Westchester areas. These plans included demolition of all business on Lincoln Blvd. as 16 feet would be added to either side of the street to accomodate Russell's buddies' projects. Now, Councilwoman Galanter, and most of the Venice community, opposes any widening for the Lincoln/Washington intersection. The Marina Place developers say this won't prevent their traffic from getting through, even though traffic is now at 150% of the intersection's capacity. George Mihlstein, Prudential's Latham and Watkins legal eagle, said that the Lincoln/Washington intersection will be "restriped" to allow more traffic through. What he really means is that lanes will get narrower--a condition that leads to slower traffic and more accidents as cars get closer together. One solution surfaced at the Town Council meeting: if America's biggest insurance company wants to gridlock even worse the worst intersection in town--maybe they should give every Venice resident an auto insurance policy. Lincoln and Washington Blvds. will be unsafe for most of us non-race car driving-types. Ruth Galanter told the Town Council membership that L.A. City traffic engineers have determined that Marina Place's traffic is unsolvable, that the only solution is to cut the project's size in half. Then, maybe, the traffic can be managed. Prudential, meanwhile says they can't make any money if they cut their project's size. Bullshit! A mall like this will be worth $500 million. (Westside office buildings are worth $500 a square foot now) Prudential says they have $36.5 million invested in the site. If they only made $250 million, would they go broke? To believe that, I guess, one would have to have pieces of the Rock in their head. Just say NO to Marina Place.
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