Century City boom times: Is it a smart facelift or buildings gone wild?

I wanted to call your attention to a story about the latest big development in Century City -- an expansion of the Westfield mall and a 49-story residential building that will replace an older office. My colleague Martha Groves wrote the article, which appeared in today's online and print editions.

Excerpt:

Century City in particular has been a hotbed of construction, with projects including 2000 Avenue of the Stars (which replaced the ABC Entertainment Center) and Westfield's $170-million first-phase redo of the outdoor shopping center, including a rooftop dining deck, enlarged movie theaters and, most recently, a parking system that directs patrons to available spaces (green light overhead) and away from occupied spaces (red light overhead).

Also underway is Related Cos.' 39-story condo tower at the site of the former St. Regis Hotel on Avenue of the Stars. Down the street at the corner of Constellation Boulevard, JMB Realty Corp. of Chicago plans three condo towers.

In nearby Beverly Hills, the Montage resort hotel is scheduled to open this month. And the Beverly Hilton is hoping that a final vote count on Measure H will allow it to proceed with a 12-story Waldorf-Astoria hotel and two luxury condo towers.

Some residents say that the accumulation of projects will inevitably exacerbate traffic problems. Westfield's environmental impact report concluded that the expansion would indeed worsen traffic.

The story also notes that Westfield has been generous with campaign contributions, particularly to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and 5th District Councilman Jack Weiss, whose district includes Century City. Martha quotes David Tyrone Vahedi, one of six serious candidates vying to replace Weiss on the council in March's election.

Vahedi lost to Weiss in the 2005 election and was a supporter of an effort to recall Weiss in 2007 in a dispute stemming from a mitigation fund for the JMB project. It appears that he's aligning himself with residents concerned over Century City, a move that may be politically deft.

I think the story raises a host of great questions. If the older version of Century City was a shapeless blob of office buildings, will the new version be better?

Can the area -- sans the Beverly Hills Freeway that was never built -- handle any increase in vehicular traffic?

Would a subway extension from downtown to Century City via mostly Wilshire Boulevard help traffic or just provide an alternative to it?

With most of the projects adding a lot of parking spaces, does that just guarantee that everyone is going to keep driving to Century City?

And, finally, does anyone out there have an idea how to fix the awful Santa Monica Boulevard exits from the 405 Freeway? The northbound exit merges with Pontius Cotner -- basically a glorified access road -- and requires traffic trying to head to Century City to crawl across three lanes of traffic to try to make the right turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard.

Feel free to leave a comment. Please try to be brief. Here's a link to a Google map with a satellite view that shows the residential neighborhoods bordering Century City.

-- Steve Hymon

Photo: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
 

Comments

[Dan W.]

2 million more people are migrating to Los Angeles County over the next two decades.

This will bring infill development instead of unsustainable sprawl. This means greater density, especially along existing and coming transit corridors. Century City is an appropriate place for it, especially with the Purple Line extension coming.

We can no longer economically or environmentally sustain an automobile-first transportation and land use policy in all parts of the County. Downtown, Century City, Hollywood and North Hollywood will continue their development.

[TonyR]

Infill development to complement the services already in place is the smartest type of development there is. The local tract associations also lose quite a bit of clout during recessions. This could explain the ease with which the building plans were approved; it's hard to turn down the fees and jobs that will be created in times like these.
One of the locals quoted does make an excellent point - there really are no public services available in the area. On the westside we get used to no police protection and sparse city services but Century City is an extreme example. I would be surprised if the LAPD West L.A. station had a single car assigned to Century City even though there are probably 100,000-200,000 people there during the day. The closest fire station? The small neighborhood station from the 50s on Pico that can barely fit both trucks at the same time? Good luck with that. Pray the sprinklers work.

[Larry Scholnick]

The solution is simple; put a dead-end on Cotner northbound (at the point where it now becomes one-way northbound). Likewise, put a deadpend on Beloit southbound (at the point where it now becomes one-way southbound). One other aspect to the solution: widen the northbound offramp to 6 lanes so that 3 lanes turn right into the 3 eastbound lanes of Santa Monica Blvd, and 3 lanes turn left into the 3 westbound lanes. The rightmost left-turn lane should still have the option to go straight ahead.