Tonight’s 7 o’clock City Council meeting to debate the merits of the planned Entrada Officer Tower with neighbors on both sides of the street that divides southern Culver City from northern Westchester is threatening to be the longest, hottest argument in the history of City Hall.
Given the huge number of angry residents — on both sides of the line — who have promised to attend, Culver City’s leaders probably should have shifted the meeting out of Council Chambers and into the Coliseum.
At his next-to-last Council meeting before bowing to term limits on April 28, Mayor Alan Corlin, after huddling with City Hall’s finest, said this morning he doubts the public will be finished speaking (complaining, that is) until 2 tomorrow morning.
Will Tomorrow Ever Come?
In that case, his intention is to put over the balance of the meeting — the discussion and vote — until tomorrow evening.
On Feb. 27, the advisory Planning Commission, at the conclusion of another wearying 7-hour meeting, voted 4 to 1 to sail the project through. Only City Councilman-elect Andy Weissman disagreed with his colleagues.
Growth-conscious activists, all around Culver City and Westchester, have not slept for days because of the sheer mass of the planned building and the increased traffic they say it will spawn.
They have been preoccupied for the last six weeks with arousing their neighbors, providing them with a handy lightning update and urging them to lock arms with their friends to descend on City Hall tonight at the corner of Culver Boulevard and Duquesne.
Activists have been circulating a power-point flyer that drums out the essential data for the under-informed residents.
“Tallest” and “biggest” are recurring themes in their emergency message.
Six Main Arguments
Their flyer leads off with what activists say are the six most important reasons to stand in opposition:
• Tallest building in Culver City history, 220 feet,
• Biggest office building in city history, 342,000 square feet.
• Tallest parking structure in city history, 62 feet above ground, 40 feet beneath the surface.
• Tallest office tower in city history, 158 feet.
• Largest office parking structure in city history, 402,500 square feet.
• The building would be positioned at the most congested intersection in the city, Sepulveda and Centinela.
Still Uncertain?
If numbers won’t numb or persuade residents that the proposal will be a permanent aesthetic blot on Culver City and Westchester, the activists have cobbled together the following agreement at the thrust of the flyer:
“The Entrada is larger than the landmark Sony Plaza office building and over twice as tall. It is larger than any building in the 70-acre Howard Hughes Center. It is larger than the historic Spruce Goose hanger. It is larger than any two buildings combined in Playa Vista. It has over three times as much built square footage as the Culver City Costco development (including Albertsons, CVS Drugs and Hollywood Video). The Symantec building will fit in its garage with room left over for City Hall.”