My candidate for Most Intriguing Story of the Week is the evident destiny of the South Sepulveda Boulevard project to diet down until it is much skinnier, narrower, than we had been told it would be.
Just a Wee Pinch, Laddie
Whether the developer Bob Champion ends up just doing a pinch of the brawny 12 1/2-acre project that has been advertised, or he redevelops a little more, this has been fun.
The dapper Mr. Champion has brought uncommon zest to this proposed redevelopment that hardly ever shows up in Culver City.
He is a magnetic personality, of which the world — not to mention Culver City — is quite short.
Urban Who?
Urban Partners is a much better-known developer in this town. But U.P., as the company is imaginatively identified, is as faceless and bland as a Democrat at an event strictly for grownups.
Mr. Champion has rock-star qualities. He looks and acts the part. He does not dispatch an interning, hank-haired, concave-chested messenger boy to represent him Culver City events. He dons his own armor, and he walks right in.
A Winner as the Emcee
Last Dec.5, when he faced about 300 shall we say aroused residents and land/business owners at El Rincon School to define his plans, I waited for the music to usher him in.
He was as comfortable playing leader of the band that night as you are dining alone with your spouse.
If the assertions of our sources pan out and the gigantic teardown/rebuild is reduced to a veritable crumb, a Billy Barty-sized project, getting to that point still will be entertaining with Mr. Champion wearing the engineer’s cap.
Meanwhile, what about the teardown?
Keep Your Laundry Handy
Our information is that businesses and residents who are against the project should not relax, should not send out their laundry.
Change, in the form of serious redevelopment, is, or soon will be, thundering down Sepulveda Boulevard. In the saddle of the big-toothed white horse will be Mr. Champion — or another developer.
Gathering Speed
Hook your thumbs behind your suspenders, and hang on.
After visiting with Mr. Champion last evening, I went home, brewed a selection of tea leaves over our steaming hot stove, and then I spent 2 hours trying to interpret the deeply embedded messages.
No Door-Knocking
He said neither he nor his company has approached any of the 77 business owners.
Hmmm.
Is the Champion company really going door-to-door and buying out 77 business men and women, some of whom don’t want to leave?
You don’t check out your car for a long trip after you have traveled for a day or two, do you?
They Have Been There
The Wilshire Boulevard company has been through this scenario.
Maybe they are so sharp they can walk in on Monday and complete their business by Friday.
Dickering with the entrepreneurs along Exposition Boulevard, or any other business in the Washington-National-Exposition light rail triangle, is child’s play in comparison, if you run the numbers.
Can’t You Only Select One?
Mr. Champion made 2 statements worthy of closer inspection:
On the one hand, “Whether South Sepulveda is a full-scope project or a partial scope project is up to the Redevelopment Agency.”
Moments later, he said: “My personal opinion is that the whole project should be done – by me, of course.”
In a single stroke instead of redeveloping it piecemeal? “I believe that one developer can do a more cohesive job than several.”
That sounds to me like opposing statements.
The View from Upside Down
What is our world coming to when the Star Prep Academy on Jefferson Boulevard — which was supposed to go away after last August — snaps into impressive regulatory compliance while Mr. Champion’s company, a classy outfit, appears to dawdle?
Last December, the Champion company was given 90 days to submit architectural pictures of what South Sepulveda is to look like after flattening 77 businesses and reconfiguring the west side of the street.
Three Choices
At the appointed hour last Thursday, Mr. Champion produced 3 different design plans for South Sepulveda.
But, no financial prospectus.
Mr. Champion could not make up his mind which one he liked best. And so no financial prospectus was turned in for any of them.
A Week Here, a Week There
He asked Todd Tipton, the Interim Director of the Community Development Dept., for a one-week grace period.
Mr. Tipton, of course, assented.
When the subject came up in our conversation last night, Mr. Champion — casually, I thought — said he would turn in the financial sketch “Friday or Monday.”
The Most Closely Watched
Of all of the redevelopment programs City Hall has done since the turn of the century, South Sepulveda has made more people breathless than any other.
The veteran activists are back. And new people, unaccustomed to involvement, are scootching toward the front of their chairs, anxious to hear the next chapter.
Clearly, No Sense of Humor
When my loan is due, my bank does not tell me, “Hey, pal, come by when it is convenient for you, Friday, Monday, whenever. We have plenty of money to hold us until you arrive.”
Is this any way to conduct a high-powered business plan that has our town panting? Just asking.
