[Editor’s Note: The veteran City Councilman was the keynote speaker yesterday afternoon at the bisnow.com-sponsored Future of Culver City panel of realtors.]
[img]1305|right|Andy Weissman||no_popup[/img]I’m happy to be here to welcome you and provide a brief overview of what’s happening now in Culver City and how things look for the future of Culver City.
I have lived in Culver City for 62 of my 64 years. Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, I did not start practicing law with my father in 1952.
Growing up here, Culver City was described, if described at all, with descriptors such as sleepy, quiet, old-time charm, a great place to drive through, and isn’t that where MGM used to be.
I suppose like many of you, I never thought I’d hear the words trendy, hip, hot, the place where you want to be, used to describe Culver City.
When I was elected to the City Council nearly seven years ago we had 12 significant redevelopment projects in the pipeline.
Few, I’m not sure any, were completed.
Talk about wrong place, wrong time:
I got elected to the Council in 2008. My swearing-in is followed by our then-City Manager warning us of the perfect storm on the horizon. Boy, did he seriously underestimate that. A year later we are walloped by the Great Recession, which I get to preside through as Mayor while all of our development projects fall to the wayside. Then the governor goes ahead and eliminates redevelopment. And don’t forget unfunded pension liabilities.
At the time, I think there may have been a skeptic or two who wondered if Culver City had a future.
But that was then and this is now.
Down the street from here, at Washington and National, we created a new Transit Oriented Development District, encompassing one-half mile around the new Expo light rail station.
The District is comprised of a number of transit-oriented developments planned or under construction. They include:
Access Culver City – a 115-unit mixed use development with a public park and ground level retail being developed by Greystar
Platform – An 80,000 sq. foot retail and office center being developed by Runyan Partners; and
The city’s Washington National Transit Oriented Development – a 5.5 acre mixed use development of office, retail, restaurants, 150-room hotel and 200 housing units located around one-third acre of central open space.
Lowe Enterprises Real Estate Group is developing the project, and I don’t want to steal Tom Wulf’s thunder so I’ll stop there.
Understanding the importance of connectivity, we are looking to connect surrounding development with the transit station and to connect the TOD District with adjacent districts, including our nearby Arts District, Helms District, Downtown and the Hayden Tract through pedestrian amenities, car sharing, bike sharing and, hopefully, a shuttle.
We understand that appearance is important. We are doing some simple but effective streetscape improvements around the TOD District and throughout the city (including special paving planters, benches and street trees) as part of that connectivity.
You may be familiar with Parcel B, the lot in front of Culver Studios in our Downtown.
Parcel B, one of our last remaining redevelopment parcels, is the capstone for Downtown Culver City’s overnight success, albeit, 20-plus years in the making.
Combined Properties will develop Parcel B with an office – retail project, designed by Steven Ehrlich including a great public space called the “Grand Steps”.
The project has ground level retail and great restaurant space above, underground parking and connects directly with outdoor public spaces.
We are very excited to see this long anticipated project moving forward.
On the western side of the city, the past five years have seen the opening of new restaurants like A Frame, Waterloo and City, the Corner Door, new building facades and new streetscapes, a result of our Area Improvement Plans that provided layered improvements consisting of landscaped medians, shop renovations, architectural design services and in some cases “gap loans” to qualified businesses.
The AIP program will eventually encompass 24 blocks upon completion.
Also on the West End, we are looking forward to development of the old Baldwin Motel site. Right, Wally?
Also, development of a Market Hall at Washington and Centinela to further complement the existing improvements along what had been a long neglected corridor of Culver City.
We expect this Market Hall to be center of artisanal food services, small cafes, restaurants and food kiosks that will include small bakeries, cheese shops and produce vendors among other food centric businesses and a public parking component to create a destination for dining and shopping.
We are happily working to bring the Jazz Bakery back, to city- owned property adjacent to the Kirk Douglas Theatre.
The Jazz Bakery building is being designed by Frank Gehry and will feature Gehry’s landmark curve-liner metal building finish like the Disney Music Hall.
I am delighted to report that, despite the Great Recession and seeming best efforts on the part of the state to the contrary, much has been accomplished here, much more will be achieved, and the future of Culver City is bright indeed.
We have nearly $300 million in former Redevelopment Agency projects that are proceeding toward implementation.
We have obtained approval from the state’s Dept. of Finance of our 2,000-page, long-range property management plan.
And with that approval, comes the turning of the page on redevelopment with more traditional economic development planning that will set the table for Culver City’s future.
We recently completed an Economic Development Plan to better understand the city’s current economic conditions
and developed a work plan to address them for the next several years.
The plan includes work in several economic districts in the city (Jefferson Corridor, Downtown, Fox Hills, Sepulveda, Hayden Tract, Smiley Blackwelder, the TOD District and West Washington Boulevard.
One of the plan components includes land use and master planning to reposition Fox Hills, our ‘80s business park, as a new creative office district, with a new retail Main Street, shared parking opportunities, installation of high speed internet service, repurposing of older buildings with open floor plans, new housing development, new transportation opportunities and increased common open space.
As recently as Monday night, the Council approved a Professional Services Agreement with Matrix Consulting Group to Conduct an Evaluation of the city’s Development Services Processes with the goal of improving customer service and responsiveness.
We are proceeding with new ways to enhance high-speed internet service and provide parking to help grow our creative office districts.
We created a Fiber Optic Plan to accommodate five creative office districts to bring down the last mile costs for high speed internet service as a new public service to spur reinvestment, and we are partnering with stakeholders to construct a new dark fiber optic trunk line.
The areas that we are focusing our initial efforts on will be the Hayden Tract, Smiley Blackwelder, the TOD District, the Jefferson Corridor and Fox Hills.
We have recently approved a new parking district for the Hayden Tract that will allow more flexible ways to provide parking for creative businesses.
We are permitting screened automated parking facilities that make it possible to provide twice the amount of parking in the same space.
Our first Hayden Tract property owner is now constructing a 90-car lift system.
We are working to develop parking in partnership with adjacent property owners along an old rail spur for businesses use.
We are proud of how we have grown and the way we have grown.
We are far from complacent and clearly not content to rest on our laurels.
We have very large-scale development projects already under way, rejuvenated, lapsed and thought to be gone, former redevelopment sites back in the pipeline for development and smaller scale, transformative, development projects, that are works in process.
The people who will follow me up here tonight will describe for you the things they think make Culver City special and how they are going to move the City forward.
I look forward to hearing their thoughts on the Future of Culver City.
I would be remiss if I didn’t also recognize my colleagues on the City Council and our City Manager, John Nachbar, and Sol Blumenfeld, Todd Tipton and the Community Development Dept. for their collective vision and hard work that has allowed us to achieve what we have thus far.
I would also like to express my appreciation and thanks to those of you in the development community for believing in Culver City
and for continuing to work to make Culver City the great place it is to live, work and play
