Culver City Ca Development And Redevelopment

Pummeled by two growling construction vehicles, the towering Studio Drive-In movie screen, long unused, swayed once before pitching forward and crashing to earth Monday, a defunct Culver City landmark demolished to make room for homes, a park and a school. Like many other Los Angeles-area drive-ins, the days when families watched Hollywood's latest hits from crowded station wagons are long gone at the Sepulveda Boulevard site, and some residents say the 50-year-old screen had become an eyesore.

Crown Realty & Development Inc. has begun construction on the 200,000-square-foot second phase of Wateridge, an office development at La Cienega Boulevard and Slauson Avenue in the Culver City-Fox Hills office market. The new office, which Crown is building on a speculative basis, is on a 21-acre site that includes 330,000 square feet of office space that is 98% leased, said Robert Flaxman, president of Newport Beach-based Crown.

Facing continued pressure from residents, the Culver City City Council has asked the city's Planning Department to explore how the city can turn a 66-acre site in the Blair Hills area--the only large open space in Culver City--into a park. This week, the council asked city staffers to explore all the funding sources available to the city that would help finance transformation of the grassy hills into parkland. The staff is expected to report back to the council in 90 days.

Culver City still proclaims itself the "Heart of Screenland," because the town was favored by early filmmakers for location shoots and speak-easies. And the Westside community remains home to Sony Pictures on what was the fabled Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot. Yet the lack of movie screens, and the consumers they bring to a shopping district, is killing the city's downtown businesses, locals say. Until two months ago, American Movie Corp.

City officials gathered next to Ballona Creek Monday to celebrate the completion of a "street scape" project conceptualized nearly five years ago. Construction of $4.3 million in improvements to Washington Boulevard between La Cienega and National boulevards began last May, said Margaret Liu, project manager for the city's Redevelopment Agency.

After three years of standing deserted, the site of Culver City's old Studio Drive-In may finally see some action. The Culver City Redevelopment Agency has been soliciting proposals for the weedy nine acres where the last of the Westside drive-ins once reigned. Developers submitted 15 plans for the site Nov. 18, including proposals to use the property for a movie studio, housing and a golf driving range. "This has citywide interest," said Margaret Liu, the agency's redevelopment project manager.

An art museum is not in the cards after all for Culver City, whose officials had been considering the possibility for more than a year. Building the museum was the condition of an offer from Los Angeles art dealer Gene Mako, who was willing to donate 800 paintings to the city as long as there was a place to house the works. Mako further requested that Culver City devote a portion of the display within its museum to paintings by his father, Bartholomew Mako.

The flickering images stopped dancing in 1993 on the huge outdoor screen at Culver City's Studio Drive-In, the last of the old drive-ins on the Westside. Long gone are other screens that loomed over the intersection of Olympic and Bundy and the corner of Beverly and Fairfax. But as recently as May, plans were bubbling along to revive the Studio as a drive-in of the future, using high-tech enhancements.

Construction will begin this week on expansion and renovation of the Culver City Police Department's headquarters, city officials said. Completion of a 9,900-square-foot addition and renovation of the existing building at 4040 Duquesne Ave. will take about 18 months, said John Fisanotti, redevelopment project specialist. The expansion is necessary to relieve overcrowding, he said. The $3.3-million project is being funded jointly by the city and its redevelopment agency.

Pummeled by two growling construction vehicles, the towering Studio Drive-In movie screen, long unused, swayed once before pitching forward and crashing to earth Monday, a defunct Culver City landmark demolished to make room for homes, a park and a school. Like many other Los Angeles-area drive-ins, the days when families watched Hollywood's latest hits from crowded station wagons are long gone at the Sepulveda Boulevard site, and some residents say the 50-year-old screen had become an eyesore.

The City Council this week moved toward establishing a downtown business improvement district, which would move the responsibility for marketing a revitalized downtown away from city officials to downtown business owners. On Monday, the council unanimously approved a resolution to introduce an ordinance that would create a business improvement district between Duquesne Avenue and Robertson Boulevard along Culver and Washington boulevards, said Jerry Ichien, city redevelopment project specialist.

City officials gathered next to Ballona Creek Monday to celebrate the completion of a "street scape" project conceptualized nearly five years ago. Construction of $4.3 million in improvements to Washington Boulevard between La Cienega and National boulevards began last May, said Margaret Liu, project manager for the city's Redevelopment Agency.

Plans to build a school and homes on the vacant Studio Drive-In site have been approved, officials said. The Education Resource and Services Center, a kindergarten through 12th-grade school for students with learning and developmental disabilities, will build a 38,500-square-foot facility on the site, which is bounded by Jefferson and Sepulveda boulevards and Machado Road, said Margaret Liu, project manager for the Culver City Redevelopment Agency.

The operators of a cemetery can go forward with plans to build a chapel at the site of an abandoned supermarket now that the City Council has decided to allow the memorial park's expansion, officials said. The master plan for the expansion of Hillside Memorial Park & Mortuary calls for a chapel and mortuary to be built on a two-acre parcel at Green Valley Circle and Centinela Avenue, said Barry Berlin, the cemetery's chief operating officer.

Public comment will be gauged Thursday on a proposed downtown movie multiplex. The project, which would combine movie theaters, restaurants and retail space, is in the planning stages, said Anne Friedrich, deputy community development director for the Culver City Redevelopment Agency. OliverMcMillan Development LLC of San Diego has proposed building a 200,000-square-foot structure at Washington and Culver boulevards.

A Superior Court judge dealt the city of Los Angeles a major setback Thursday in its battle to stop construction of a massive shopping mall in neighboring Culver City. In a six-page decision, Judge John Zebrowski rejected environmental arguments raised by Los Angeles and ruled that the Culver City City Council had complied with the California Environmental Quality Act in approving the $160-million Marina Place project last March.

The Culver City Council has voted unanimously to allow an initiative lowering the maximum allowable height of new buildings on the April, 1990, ballot. However, Mayor Richard Brundo said he thinks the city will set lower limits before then, making the measure unnecessary. Slow-growth advocates launched a petition drive in January to force a June primary ballot vote on the initiative, which would cut the maximum height from 167 feet to 56 feet.

Construction will begin this week on expansion and renovation of the Culver City Police Department's headquarters, city officials said. Completion of a 9,900-square-foot addition and renovation of the existing building at 4040 Duquesne Ave. will take about 18 months, said John Fisanotti, redevelopment project specialist. The expansion is necessary to relieve overcrowding, he said. The $3.3-million project is being funded jointly by the city and its redevelopment agency.

A historic downtown movie theater is closer to reopening as a live theater, a spokeswoman for the Culver City Redevelopment Agency said Monday. A preliminary plan to renovate the Culver Theater--closed since 1989--was approved unanimously by the agency, project manager Susan Berg said. The plan, submitted by the Center Theatre Group, calls for a 420-seat theater in what is now the movie theater's auditorium and a 100-seat experimental theater in what is now the balcony.