Woodland Hills Post Office May Go Bye-Bye

The slow death of snail mail may soon bring about the birth of a new multi-family housing development in the West Valley.  According to a document from the Woodland Hills-Warner Center Neighborhood Council, AMCAL Multi Housing Company intends to demolish the Woodland Hills Post Office to make way for an apartment complex.  The proposed development would rise from an approximately 3.6-acre site at 22121 Clarendon Street, located immediately south of the 101 Freeway.  However, even the most basic details about the project not been revealed at this point in time.

Although AMCAL has not previously ventured into Woodland Hills, the Texas-based developer is no stranger to other parts of Southern California.  Their previous work includes the Gold Line-adjacent Avenue 26 TOD in Lincoln Heights and the Red Line-adjacent Argyle Apartments in East Hollywood.

New Residential-Office Complex Proposed in Warner Center

The Warner Center 2035 Plan was designed to transform the sleepy business district into an active mixed-use community.  In a positive sign for the neighborhood's future, developers are swooping in left and right to make this vision a reality.  The latest large scale mixed-use project headed to the West Valley comes from Associated Estates Realty Group, in the form of a low-rise and mid-rise development in Warner Center's College District.  According to a document from the Woodland Hills - Warner Center Neighborhood Council, the Ohio-based developer has plans for 379 apartment units and 71,000 square feet of office space, to be located at 21221 Oxnard Street.  Residential buildings would range from five to seven stories in height, with plans calling for 82 live-work units.  The office portion of the project would rise in a nine-story tower, standing approximately 150 feet tall with an unspecified amount of ground floor retail space.  A full build out of the development, which would occur in two phases, calls for a total of 680 parking stalls.  The project site is currently developed with a two-story office building that once housed the offices of the Los Angeles Daily News.

What To Expect from Warner Center's Rocketdyne Development

The post-Cold War exodus of Los Angeles' aerospace industry has left behind large swaths of underutilized industrial land.  Chief amongst those properties is a 47-acre parcel at the intersection of Victory Boulevard and Canoga Avenue, which was previously occupied by Rocketdyne.  Located in the heart of Warner Center, talk of development has swirled around the property since 2011.  Finally, developer Boston Global Investors tipped their hand last week.  In a Wednesday article from the Daily News, BGI announced plans for LA Warner Center, a $3 billion dollar development consisting of residential, office, retail and hotel uses.  Although exact designs and building heights have yet to be finalized, a site plan linked to BGI's website calls for multiple high-rise structures centered around a five-acre public park.  As mandated by the new Warner Center Specific Plan, the Rocketdyne project looks to encourage transit usage, pedestrian activity, and even a connection to the LA River.  Architectural firms HOK and Arup have been commissioned to design the project, which is owned by former Rocketdyne parent company, United Technologies Corporation.  The aforementioned site plan states that the anticipated development timeline for the project is 10-12 years.

Village at Westfield Topanga Ditches Hotel Tower...For Now

The controversial Village at Westfield Topanga, scourge of neighbors and Southern California taxpayer advocates alike, is shrinking.  According to an economic feasibility study commissioned by the LA City Council, the Australian mall developer has dropped its plans for a hotel as part of the first phase of their Warner Center mega-project.  The hotel, which Westfield may still pursue at a later date, would have risen 16-stories from the intersection of Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Erwin Street.  The Daily News reports that it had been envisioned as a 158-room Hyatt.  However, it's not all bad news coming out of the West Valley.  As an olive branch to the neighbors, City Hall and the Westfield Group have carefully negotiated a community benefits package to be included with the project.  These amenities include $3.325 million trust fund, a new location for the Valley's "Walk of Hearts," event, digital signage and public art.

Predictably, the feasibility study states that the amount of parking has decreased with the reduction of the hotel tower.  However, the report hints that the street fronting surface parking seen in renderings will still be part of the project.  Certainly a huge urban design flaw for Warner Center, which purportedly aims to be a "pedestrian and transit focused community."  The feasibility study also announces that the Village will implement a paid parking program, expected to generate over $2 million per year in revenue.  While parking fees have become the norm at other Southern California shopping centers (like Westfield's flagship Century City location), few malls in the San Fernando Valley have implemented such a program until now.  Regardless of these changes, the project is still moving forward, with permits for the controversial Costco outpost currently in the works.

A Closer Look at the Village at Westfield Topanga Development

One of the more controversial mega-developments in Los Angeles at the moment is Westfield's proposal to build a massive mixed-use complex at Warner Center.  Adjacent to the Westfield Topanga shopping mall, the project is appropriately named the Village at Westfield Topanga.  This is the same development that recently raised eyebrows when the LA City Council voted unanimously to forfeit 42% of the tax revenue created by the project over the next 25 years.  Westfield of course claimed that this was a financial necessity in order to build the project in one phase.

Bird's eye view of the proposed development.

Westfield's bread and butter is retail, and this project has it in spades: 444,744 square feet in total.  This includes a 165,759 square foot Costco, which has been one of the main issue of contention with this project.  The Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization filed a lawsuit back in April, arguing that the Costco and its accompanying gas station violates the Warner Center Specific Plan by encouraging car use.  I'm no lawyer, but I can't imagine how one could possibly argue that a gas station doesn't encourage car use.

The "Village," also includes a second anchor tenant in the form of a 275 key high rise hotel.  The 247.5 foot tall hotel comes complete with a two story podium filled with even more retail and restaurant space (duh).

The final aspect of the Village is 285,000 square feet of office space set to fill either one or two towers rising as tall as 247.5 feet.  Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of this.  Metro Los Angeles' overall office vacancy stands at 19% as of Q2, with the West San Fernando Valley at an anemic 36.9%.  At the same time, Farmers Insurance recently relocated their corporate headquarters to Warner Center, signing a 274,000 square foot lease.  Perhaps the fortunes of the Valley are turning?
 
Anyway, here we see the present condition of the site, mostly vacant land and underutilized surface parking:

And here is the master plan illustrated over roughly the same view:

Moving on, let's take a look at some ground level renderings:

People never look this happy when they're at Costco.

Westfield is clearly shooting for the same kind of atmosphere as their Century City location, which makes sense given the upper-middle class population of Woodland Hills.  You have to wonder if outdoor shopping in the brutal SFV summers could be a turnoff, though.

Different view of the retail paseo.  Who is this chick in the bottom left hand corner smiling at?

Now back to the bird's eye view:

Viewed from this angle, it looks more 3rd Street Promenade than Westfield Century City.  The architecture is pretty generic, but not an eyesore.  I'm sure artistic liberty also spruced it up a bit for this picture.

One last view from across the street.  I see a lot of surface parking.

So there we have it.  While it's nice to see something besides low rise apartment buildings going up in the Valley, this is pretty disappointing from a urban design perspective (surface parking lots fronting the street?!).

Warner Center isn't really that accessible by transit (despite the Orange Line), nor is there much population density in the area to provide organic foot traffic. I can understand the 3,000+ parking spaces to some extent, but Westfield isn't even trying here.  Putting surface parking in between the sidewalk and the stores makes this project look like a strip mall on steroids.  Adding in a gas station station just furthers that comparison.