Glendale Voters Will Determine The Fate Of Caruso's Town Center Project On Sept. 14

What instructions have each of you been given by the city's elected leadership re a vision for Glendale going forward? With pressure for more density in a built out community, what are your marching orders re planning and redevelopment?

Hassan Haghani

The instructions actually are kind of mixed right now. We're currently having a series of discussions and meetings to craft a vision for the future of downtown. Based on the existing fabric of downtown we have some ideas that we're presenting to the community and to the council. In the year and half that I've been here, the atmosphere is a little more receptive to the pressures of growth in downtown, but perhaps not elsewhere in the city.

Philip Lanzafame

In 1996, we went through a planning and visioning exercise that resulted in a greater downtown strategic plan. That was a high level look that established some goals and objectives and set out what the community would like to see downtown look like. The discussions that Hassan referred to are taking that a step further and starting to put those visions, goals and objectives into practice.

Let's turn to one of the most contentious development projects in Southern California, and that's the proposal for a new retail development by Caruso Affiliated on a 15 1/2 acre site in your downtown. First, is this property really considered blighted?

PL: The short answer is yes. The property is in a redevelopment project area, and it has many of the characteristics that state law describes as blight. We adopted the area in 1972. We've amended the plan probably four or five times, as recently as 1998, and found those conditions of blight to still exist. Do each and every one of the parcels contain all of the issues of blight? No. But the area is blighted, and we hope that through this redevelopment project we can revitalize the area and bring it back into productive use.

Before we get into the contentious issues, would one of you outline what's being planned for the downtown site?

PL: Generally speaking, the plan is a mixed-use project with 475,000 square feet of retail, entertainment and restaurant, and 338 housing units-100 for-sale condominiums and 238 rental units. What is a little bit unique and exciting for us is that the plan is anchored by a major open space. There are approximately two acres of public park, and then an additional acre of plazas, a pedestrian promenade and other open space throughout the center.

This development project has now spawnded three Glendale ballot measures for a vote September 14th. Why three and what's being publically voted upon?

PL: In doing this project, there were certain things that we needed to accomplish from a zoning perspective. The current zoning just doesn't allow for today's urban housing product. In order to accommodate that, we needed to revise some of the zoning for this particular area. In consulting with our partners in the Planning Department, we decided that the best tool would be a specific plan, because we were looking at a defined 15 1/2 acre parcel. We knew what the specific objectives of the project were, so we wanted to create some unique standards for this project.

We also entered into a statutory development agreement with the developer for a term of 30 months. The agreement ensures that zoning throughout the construction period so that the project can be developed according to the rules agreed to by all parties.

So the zoning actions taken by the council were: to re-designate the property from the central business district to the town center specific plan, to adopt the specific plan as the controlling zoning for the area, and to adopt the development agreement. In addition, we had some text changes and zoning map changes just to accommodate the town center specific plan. The first three actions – the change in designation of the property, the specific plan, and the development agreement – were petitioned, and those are what will appear on the ballot.

Over the years, there have been many articles written about ballot box zoning and planning. Are Glendale's ballot measures an exaggerated precedent for what is likely to repeatedly happen in Glendale and the Los Angeles basin in the future when like developments are proposed?

HH: I certainly hope not. I think what's involved here goes beyond the basic discussions of zoning and planning. There are two entities involved that are outside of the general realm of planning. Like all other planning departments and redevelopment agencies, we come up with ideas and we invite the public to discuss them, which we did here as well. We hope to continue doing our planning without these kinds of interruptions.

Obviously, the existing stakeholder, General Growth, is upset with both the subsidy from the city and the design of the Caruso project. But, is that the essence of the politics, or is there more?

PL: You would have to talk to General Growth about that. In terms of the project, we have been on a community involvement track from the very beginning. We've tried to accommodate everybody's wants, needs and desires – from the community, the City Council, and the professional staff. On top of that, the developer has a need to accommodate the market– the tenants that will occupy the space.

There's an entity and several people in the community that have issues with either the design or business terms and they are using the avenues available to them to challenge the approvals that the City Council and redevelopment agency have given this project.

Since there is a public subsidy for the Caruso development in the downtown plan, what is the city's justification for that subsidy?

PL: My philosophy of public policy is that the public should only be involved where there is a private industry failure, and vice versa. Where there's a public industry failure, the private sector should step in to correct it. Redevelopment exists to revitalize areas that can't or wouldn't be developed by the private sector for whatever reason. If the project could be done with a market return, the private sector would do it. The problem is that the project doesn't pencil out under the current zoning laws, and more specifically, because what we as a community have said we want to see on that site.

We are sponsoring the project to achieve something that want to see here in Glendale. There are impositions that we've put on the project – provide three acres of public space, keep it to five stories, keep your density to 338 units, pay prevailing wages, bid everything as a public work, make the effort to hire Glendale residents in the jobs that are available. All those things add up to make a project that's not viable in the market place. So, in order to make it happen you have to subsidize the project. That's not to say that we're not getting anything in return. Perhaps we're not getting a dollar in return? But, there are other tangible and intangible returns that we do get. The whole discussion hinges on the philosophical question, "do you agree with the premise of redevelopment in the first place?"

Many in the community are questioning the need and value of building an inward facing Americana project, effectively walling off the new development to the Galleria. How has the city directed the connectivity between the two projects to be developed?

HH: When we were reviewing the design, we actually made sure that the design opened up both visual and pedestrian connections to the Galleria. That was one of the things we emphasized and we got, and that's why the pedestrian promenade ends on Harvard.

PL: If you look at an elevation map or a rendering, you'll see that the Americana has an entrance into one of its courtyards on Central about halfway between Colorado and Broadway. The design terminates the pedestrian promenade directly across the street from the Galleria's entrance.

On the western edge of the project– facing Central – there is a single story restaurant, the lobby to the housing, and a building about 67 feet high. There are windows, balconies, terraces, and awnings on the first floor. To the extent we can, we'll get retailers that put doors on Central. Retailers would rather have one door, both for marketing and security purposes. But, to the extent we can, we'll get them to use two doors. If nothing else, it will at least have the look of a storefront. For example, there will be a wall that's part of the cinema. You can't do much about that in terms of windows, but you can dress it up and have some faux windows or architectural treatments or awnings, or things of that nature to try and break it up.

I think the design really does make the western edge of the project attractive to pedestrians. In the places where there are the true connection points, we've made accommodations for the Galleria to receive the town center.

I understand the term "walled off," but it's not a wall. It's people's homes, it's storefronts, it's restaurant space, it's entries into retail and entertainment attractions.

HH: The design also features prominent pedestrian connections between the Galleria and Brand, which is our signature street, that don't exist today. Today, people can walk up Harvard to the Galleria, but they have to walk through a bunch of surface parking lots. Through this project, they'll walk through the promenade, and the experience that they have on Brand can continue through this project and into the Galleria. So, there is a real pedestrian connection envisioned. We wanted this project to play a role in emphasizing the pedestrian feel connecting the different parts of the downtown.

PL: When you mentioned connectivity, your question was really aimed at the Galleria, but Hassan started to introduce the connectivity to Brand. There's a new street that we'll construct in the project between the existing Harvard and Colorado. We've lined that up with a piece of property that we've been able to acquire on the East side of Brand that would become a passageway into our central park, adult recreation centers, and library

So we do have these connections throughout the project to different aspects of the surrounding community that we think are important.

Lastly, What will the City of Glendale do if Americana's zoning ordinances are not approved? What's the next step then?

HH: We will continue our discussion, and we will start our next series of public workshops to continue our visioning process for the details of how the downtown should be developed. We will then put those visions into a series of incentives, regulations, or guidelines that will guide the future of our downtown. We'll just move on.

PL: We'll just have to regroup and look at what is the new vision for this area. I think we all know what happens if there's a Yes vote. We know what that vision is, and we're able to plug that into Hassan's work for envisioning the rest of the downtown. But we'll continue on the path that we've started, and we'll move on.