Transportation officials on Thursday gave a green light to the largest "transit-oriented" development in L.A. County history, a $1.3-billion apartment, retail and high-rise office tower complex to be built at the terminus of the Red Line subway and Orange Line busway in North Hollywood.
The NoHo Art Wave, which will be built on mostly vacant land or parking lots, will eclipse even the Hollywood & Highland shopping complex and underscores the efforts of transit officials to turn the once-declining North Hollywood business district into a major transit hub.
The development will feature more than 1.7 million square feet of development on 15.6 acres, which would be the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's largest transit-oriented development.
The MTA has made a priority of developing land the agency owns at its rail and bus stations.
Officials believe that locating shopping and housing next to bus and rail lines will encourage people to get out of their cars and use mass transit. But some critics have questioned whether such projects actually result in fewer car trips.
Similar developments -- but on a smaller scale -- have been rising at MTA subway stations along Wilshire Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard as well. The MTA is continuing to look at developing land at other Red Line and Orange Line stations, as well as on the Gold Line extension now being built to East Los Angeles.
The North Hollywood project and others, however, have received mixed reactions from residents, some of whom worry about rising density of the neighborhood.
Ron Bitzer, who lives northwest of the Red Line train station in North Hollywood, said that even though his community of single-family homes is not directly affected by development at the station, an influx of people and the addition of tall buildings will affect all of the community, not just the streets adjacent to the Red Line.
Bitzer said that there is so much development going on in North Hollywood -- including in his own neighborhood near Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards -- that officials should do more to reach out to residents throughout the area.
"I would have liked to have seen a little more discussion about this massive project," Bitzer said. "It doesn't sit well with me that they toss around this term 'smart growth' and then suddenly approve a large development that will obviously change the character of that part of North Hollywood."
