Westfield's Century City Tower Gets a Big Haircut

Image credit: Westfield Group

Westfield Century City's long delayed expansion plans are shrinking...again.  Citing market conditions and an ongoing dialogue with the surrounding neighborhood, the Austalian mall developer has opted to downscale its proposed 39-story high-rise to a less imposing 15-story structure.  Once planned to contain 262 condominiums, the revised tower proposal features just 20 "upscale residences."  When approved in 2009, the project was slated to include approximately 100,000 square feet of office space, in which the Westfield Group had intended to house its US headquarters.  However, as the company has since leased space in the nearby Century Plaza Towers, the modified development program has reduced the amount of commercial space by 14,000 square feet.

On the other hand, Westfield will not scrimp on retail or restaurant space in their $700 million upgrade.  The expanded facilities will add over 400,000 square feet of floor area, a new central plaza, and double the mall's parking capacity.  Additionally, streetscape improvements along Santa Monica Boulevard, Century Park West and Avenue of the Stars will add lush new greenery around the shopping complex's perimeter.  Retail tenants will reportedly include Nordstrom, Armani and New York-based Eataly.

According to the mall's official website, these improvements are scheduled for completion in 2017.  However, the exact timeline and phasing of the development is unclear at this point in time.  A demolition permit was issued for 1801 Avenue of the Stars in May, which would clear the way way for the planned residential tower.  However, the Welton Beckett-designed mid-rise still stands proudly above Santa Monica Boulevard.  To date, the only aspect of the project to have reached completion is a 550-car parking garage, located at the northeast corner of Constellation Boulevard and Century Park West.

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.

Westfield Century City Expansion Forging Ahead

A now outdated image of the proposal, via Curbed LA

The Westfield Group, scourge of California taxpayer advocates, continues to make slow but steady progress on enhancements for its flagship Century City location.  When we checked on Century City back in July, they were hard at work on the mall's new parking structure (on the right hand side of the above image).  Now Westfield is moving on to the more exciting phase of the project.  Earlier this month, they applied for a permit to demolish 1801 Avenue of the Stars.

1801 S AVENUE OF THE STARS 90067

APPLICATION / PERMIT NUMBER: 13019-10000-02077

PLAN CHECK / JOB NUMBER: B13LA09712

DEMOLITION OF BUILDING AND BELOW GRADE PARKING (298718S.F) FOR A NEW BUILDING

What new building, you may ask?  To answer that question, here's the other permit they applied for:

1801 S AVENUE OF THE STARS 90067

APPLICATION / PERMIT NUMBER: 13010-10000-02346

PLAN CHECK / JOB NUMBER: B13LA09711

NEW 3-STORY RETAIL + 2 LEVLES(sic) OF PARKING ABOVE AND NEW BELOW GRADE PARKING

As reported by LA Business Journal back in 2012, Bloomingdales will fill the retail space.  This permit application makes no mention of Westfield's 39 story condominium tower planned to sit atop Bloomingdales, likely because the residential component of the project requires a separate laundry list of permits.

1801 Avenue of the Stars/Gateway West, as it currently stands.  Designed by Welton Becket, opened in 1963.  Its twin brother, 1800 Avenue of the Stars/Gateway East, sits on the other side of the street.  They combine to form the so-called "Gateway to Century City."

1801 Avenue of the Stars in 2018 (maybe?).  Designed by Rios Clementi Hale Studios.

• Corporate welfare, alive and well (Los Angeles Times)
• The Evolution of Century City (Building Los Angeles)
• Westfield Finally About to Start on 39-Story Century City Tower (Curbed LA)

The Evolution of Century City

Century City will never be a walker's paradise, even when it does get its long awaited subway station (hopefully less than 15 years from now).  It's cold and aloof, with buildings that (for the most part) refuse to meet the sidewalk.  Generous accommodations for the automobile are strewn about.  Its retail accommodations are almost exclusively encompassed by the fortress like Westfield Century City mall.

Nonetheless, Century City is on pace for a massive amount of construction activity in the coming five years.  By 2015, five high rise buildings 460 feet or taller should be well underway.  All packed into a neighborhood which encompasses only .275 square miles.

An overhead view of Century City, with development sites outlined in red.

At the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Avenue of the Stars, Australia based Westfield is working on a 39 story residential tower which will tie into their plans to expand the Century City Mall.

Westfield's Residential Tower on the left.  This outdated rendering show a 49 story tower, not the current 39 story proposal.  Patient zero of the financial crisis still graces the marquee of the SunAmerica Center in this picture.  Image from Westfield Group.

Although construction on the tower itself has yet to begin, some ancillary construction work associated with the project is already underway.  Specifically, a 500 car parking garage at the corner of Constellation and Century Park West.

Construction progress on the new parking garage.

Of course, groundbreaking for residential tower itself is probably more than a year off.  The fairly large office building currently at the corner of Santa Monica and Avenue of the Stars is still occupied.  I suppose Westfield set the completion date as 2018 for a reason.

On the opposite side of Century City, Miami based Crescent Heights' 40 story/460 foot tall proposal at 10000 Santa Monica Blvd seems much more imminent.

10000 Santa Monica  Image from Handel Architects

Crescent Heights brought this project into the site prep stage over the past two months.  Workers have been busy with excavation and installation of utilities to get the site ready for vertical construction.

10000 Santa Monica, as it currently appears.

When completed, this building will directly overlook the LA Country Club (and some other stuff too).  As an aside, I'm puzzled as to how the LA Country Club survives to this day. It take up hundreds of acres of prime real in between Los Angeles' two main commercial boulevards (Wilshire and Santa Monica).  On top of that, it's twice the size of a standard golf course with 36 holes as opposed to 18.  I suppose that there will be some point in the coming decades where a developer makes an offer that the club just can't refuse.  Century City Part II, anyone?

Next up is a project scheduled to break ground in 2014, the Century Plaza Residential Towers.

Image from New Century Plaza

In a vacuum, these just appear to be run of the mill residential skyscrapers, each standing 46 stories and 520 feet tall.  Despite a future subway portal, both towers are deliberately designed to be isolated from the street.  The primary ingress points will be two vehicular driveways on opposite sides of the property.   Basically, these will be two auto-oriented ivory towers.

I suppose the redeeming quality of this proposal is that it creates great symmetry with the Century Plaza office towers and the CAA headquarters across the street.  Rectangular mid-rise buildings front the street, with triangular shaped twin towers rising behind.  A least the view from Google Earth will be nice.

Finally, we have the Century City Center, the only one of these proposals which seeks to create office space.

Can you spot Century City Center?  Hint: it's the only one of these buildings that doesn't exist (yet).  Image from Johnson Fain Architects.

Standing 37 stories and 570 feet tall, this building would practically sit on top of the future Century City Purple Line station (provided that Beverly Hills doesn't mess it up for everyone).  With 700,000 square feet of glassy office space, it's the largest pure office building proposed in LA County at the moment.

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.