Ken Wong and I made a little bet the other day. No money exchanged hands; it was just for bragging rights. Wong, the president of U.S. operations for Westfield Corp., thinks it will take between one and two years to get the needed entitlements for the company’s newest venture, a $700 million mixed use development between its Topanga and Promenade malls in Warner Center that, as planned, will come as close to a smart growth initiative as any envisioned by urban planners. I took the over. But it doesn’t really matter how long the project takes to get through the planning process. That time will be just a speck in a timeline that dates back to 1994 when Westfield first acquired an interest in the property. So what occurred to me as I talked with Wong is that smart growth is not just about approaching urban infill so that living, working and recreational areas are contained within a walk-able area close to a transit hub. It’s not just about accommodating increased density without forsaking quality of life or the environment. Smart growth is also about forward-thinking, patient and cash rich developers who are willing and able to take the time needed to assemble these infill parcels and bring the development to fruition. As planned, The Village at Westfield Topanga will be a 30-acre, mixed use, open-air center with hotel, residences and retail stores and restaurants, all connected by landscaped (more than 1,000 trees will be planted) pedestrian walkways. Bordered by Victory Boulevard and Owensmouth Avenue and Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Erwin Street, the site sits adjacent to a transit hub that would connect the village to the rest of the Valley. Westfield acquired a 43 percent interest in the property in 1994 when it acquired the Topanga mall from Centermark. It acquired the rest of the property in 2003 from the Warner family. Even in 2003, but certainly going back to 1994, the West Valley looked a lot different than it does today. Home prices were among the least expensive in the Valley, the Promenade was nearly empty, and the Topanga mall was outdated. So different was the area when Westfield first acquired the Topanga mall that officials say they would not have dared to start the Village project before. “Three years ago, we had plans for Topanga, dreams for Topanga and a lot of leasing to do,” Wong told me. So Westfield waited and bided its time. As the company embarked on its recently completed redo of the Topanga mall, it soon learned that the region and the demographics had become not just desirable but coveted. Nordstrom built its largest prototype store at the center and Neiman Marcus will open its first store in the city of Los Angeles there next year. (Neiman’s other L.A. location is in the city of Beverly Hills.) With the experience of redeveloping the Topanga mall behind it and the area’s marketability proven, Westfield turned to the property it had been sitting on for 13 years. Westfield will need a series of zoning changes to get The Village off the ground. The property, which currently houses several shabby restaurants and a lot of empty space, was most recently entitled for office development, and zoning changes are the most lengthy and time consuming of processes. So far at least, city officials seem supportive of the effort. Indeed, Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine, who represents the West Valley, was practically giddy last week when Westfield announced its plans. He said he liked the jobs and sales tax revenues it would bring, he liked the notion that it would spruce up an underutilized area, and he liked Westfield for its past responsiveness to community needs. (Zine wants to work on getting Westfield to spring for a community center that can be used by residents and, especially, seniors.) Then, perhaps anticipating the community reaction, he did dwell on what he called a traffic impact. “We’ve got some challenges to overcome,” he said. That’s probably mild compared to the cries for open space and other amenities likely to come from the community as Westfield rolls its plans out to the surrounding neighborhood. But whether that planning process takes one year, two years or more, this project will have been more than 15 years in the making before the first shovel hits dirt. It occurs to me that this is a very different project from the kind that developers typically tackle, and it takes a very different mindset from, say, the homebuilders of yesterday who went out to sparsely populated areas to build large housing tracts, and the retail developers who followed them once the population started to congregate. I don’t know many developers out there who fit that bill. But if the Valley and the rest of the city is to accommodate the population growth projected, we’re going to need a lot more of them. Of course, I’ll still take the over. Apartment Market Still Tight Apartment vacancies in the San Fernando Valley changed little in the second quarter of 2007, according to the latest figures released by RealFacts, a Novato-based tracking service. Occupancy levels for the quarter were at 93.5 percent, up slightly from 93.1 percent in the first quarter and down 2.6 percent from the year ago period. Rents continued to climb higher, averaging $1,590 a month for the second quarter, compared to $1,581 per month in the first quarter and up 6.2 percent versus the year ago period. Two submarkets however, ran counter to the overall trend. In North Hollywood, occupancy rates declined 11 percent while rents rose 16.5 percent. In Simi Valley, where occupancies were down 8.5 percent, rents rose 12.2 percent. Senior Reporter Shelly Garcia can be reached at (818) 316-3123 or by e-mail at [email protected] .
