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Another World The Transcendental Painting Group,
Vague plans
Opponents of the project as currently presented argue that the plans are vague and, if approved, would allow developments twice the size of the Crypto.com Arena (the former Staples Center).
“While the developer’s rhetoric is all about building a studio… the developer is not promising to build a studio at all!” Danielle Peters, co-chair of Neighbors for Responsible TVC Development, said in a recent statement.
“The developer also seeks for the property to become a ‘Regional Center,’ allowing the same density as the Century City shopping and business district, as well as a Sign District, in a primarily residential and low-rise neighborhood,” Peters continued.
But Sokoloff, of Hackman Capital, claims “‘Regional Center’ is a technical term used by the City for sites that ‘contain a diversity of uses such as offices, retail and major entertainment facilities and supporting services,’ which ‘typically provide a significant number of jobs,’ per the City’s General Plan Framework Element. For example, The Academy Museum property, located a few blocks away, is designated as a ‘Regional Center,’” he said.
[In actuality, the Miracle Mile, with its two long-planned subway stations, has been designated a “Regional Center” since 1972, more than three decades pri- or to the Academy leasing and moving its new Museum onto the remodeled May Co. department store site. – Ed.]
Local community groups opposing the current version of the proposed TVC 2050 project are gaining members. Some 50 people attended the Neighbors for Responsible TVC Development’s second meeting held recently at the Gilmore Adobe at the Original Farmers Market, adjoining the proposed development.
“The last thing our neighborhood needs is this monster 20-story project towering over our neighborhood, bringing more traffic, more pollution and much higher rents,” said the group’s co-chair Shelley Wagers. Both Wagers and Peters are longtime Beverly Grove residents.
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Tvc 2050
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Another community-based group that opposes the scale and scope of the development, Beverly Fairfax Community Alliance, formed itself last year after the project’s current plans were revealed.
The Miracle Mile Residential Association also is sounding the alarm.
“Every neighborhood group is working very, very hard to rein that [project] in,” said MMRA president Greg Goldin.
The request for a “regional center; that’s a blank check to do whatever you want for 25 years,” Goldin said.
The City of Los Angeles Planning Dept. staff is reviewing hundreds of letters submitted last fall during the public comment phase of the project’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) preparation.
To receive notification of project publications and hearing and meeting notices, write to Paul Caporaso (paul.caporaso@lacity.org) with “TVC 2050” in the subject line. Also entitled, not under construction Nearby, in the Miracle Mile and not unlike the abandoned Frank Gehry project at Crescent Heights and Sunset, is a parcel of land on La Brea
Avenue that adjoins the nearly finished subway station at Wilshire and La Brea.
That project also has received full entitlements — for an eight-story hoteland-multifamily mixed-use complex. Known in recent years by its tentative name of 639 La Brea, the project was set to start construction in the last quarter of 2022. By then, all of the parcel’s one-story retail buildings on La Brea had been demolished, leaving a large vacant lot.
A spokesman for the developer told us recently that the project is “on hold” pending a better understanding of the present inflationary economy.
“The project has been delayed due to rising construction costs,” he added.
The developer, CGI+ Real Estate Investments, acquired the property in 2017. The nearly