Burbank Approves 5-Story Warner Office Expansion : Construction: The revised plan is a result of community input. Work on the 18-month project will begin early next year.

The Burbank City Council approved a plan by Warner Bros. to construct a five-story, 142,000-square-foot office building next to the company’s studio complex in the Media District, the second major studio expansion voted for in the city in two weeks.

The Warner project was approved unanimously late Tuesday. Last week, the council approved a massive expansion plan for Walt Disney Studios.

Warner’s plan calls for a Spanish-style building with a courtyard and extensive landscaping on a 1.6-acre triangular lot on the north side of Olive Avenue between Pass Avenue and Maple Street.

Construction is expected to begin early next year and take about 18 months, said Jim Suhr, Warner vice president for real estate operations.

The new building will allow Warner to consolidate the offices of administrative employees, who now occupy rented office space in other Burbank locations, Suhr said. The project will also provide 450 underground parking spaces to serve about 530 Warner office workers.

The council, at the request of neighbors, modified the proposal to require Warner to provide parking for all construction workers on its nearby 104-acre studio lot, which has about 35 acres available for parking.

Warner will not reveal the project’s cost. But the plan has been significantly scaled down since it was first proposed about two years ago, Suhr said.

“At one point, there was talk of retail, restaurants and movie theaters” at the site, Suhr said. “These were all things not favored by neighbors and dropped.” The building design was also modified substantially at the request of neighbors, he said.

“This is a good textbook case of good planning,” said Councilman Timothy Murphy. “This is a project that outside input has improved.”

Representatives of homeowner groups from the nearby Toluca Lake area praised Warner for its willingness to address their concerns. As part of an overall development plan for the Media District, the city last year set up a series of traffic barriers that divert traffic from residential streets in Toluca Lake to main roads such as Olive or Pass.

But not all neighbors are happy. Several owners of apartment buildings and small businesses spoke against the project.

Despite the parking stipulations, Charles Tarney, owner of Cadillac Hair Design on Pass Avenue, said he feared that construction workers would take all the available street parking near his business. He said another recent construction project drove away about 30% of his business.

“I might go under. I don’t know if I can survive 20 months of construction,” Tarney said. Robert Brown, who owns an apartment building near the site, said he wants to be compensated by Warner or the city for the economic hardship the project would cause him.

“I know I’ll have a number of tenants move out during the project,” Brown said.

Mayor Robert Bowne told Brown and Tarney that the city would not compensate them but said city traffic planners and Warner executives would discuss ways to alleviate parking woes with nearby businesses if they occur.

Suhr also offered to help provide extra parking spaces to local businesses when feasible.

“We’re willing to work with local businesses. At least some of the time we think we can provide some help,” Suhr said. “But how much space we have available at any one time depends on our studio production cycles.”