Subway Comes to N. Hollywood, but Will Area’s Revival Follow?

After spending $117 million in an attempt to revitalize North Hollywood, city officials are now counting on a new subway station and a new developer to provide the catalyst that has eluded them for 20 years.

But residents and merchants, mindful of past mistakes, say they already see signs of trouble ahead.

Less than a year after they were announced, ambitious plans to build offices and sound stages have been scaled back, and there has been no development around the subway station, with two agencies waiting for each other to take the first step.

“I hope the subway will make things better,” said businessman Patrick Berberian. “That is my wish. But I have to see it to believe it.”

Berberian said he heard the same promises 20 years ago, when the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency began its effort to rescue the area from blight.

Two decades later, many residents are still stuck in poverty, dead-end jobs and crowded housing, according to an analysis published Sunday by The Times.

Will the subway make the difference?

The combination of redevelopment and transit in other cities has failed to rescue rundown neighborhoods, according to numerous studies during the last two decades.

“Just improving access by rail trains . . . won’t turn a neighborhood around,” said Robert Cervero, author of a recent study and a professor of city planning at UC Berkeley. “The bigger problems of crime and urban blight are much more deeply rooted. Rail won’t change those problems.”

Many North Hollywood civic leaders are concerned that the subway is now seen as a panacea, and worry that the transit and redevelopment agencies will fail to work in tandem.

They cite the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s installation of a sidewalk over the objections of the redevelopment agency, which plans to tear out that work when it widens a nearby street this summer. Transit officials said they went ahead because of safety concerns and a preexisting contract.

In another case, the agencies are still squabbling over how to free up land for commuter-oriented development while providing enough parking for commuters.

“We need to get the MTA to do more than just develop parking on this site. It’s an awful waste. We’re really disappointed,” said redevelopment agency planner Walter Beaumont. The parking lot idea “is just a killer.”

Both agencies try to dispel such fears by saying they are cooperating. But each pointedly suggests that the other should be the first to break ground.

“What I am afraid of is they will open the station in May or June and there will be huge amounts of acreage that nobody will do anything with for a long time,” said Larry Applebaum, president of the Universal City/North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a tragedy.”

Transit officials said they have been waiting for a revitalized North Hollywood that will attract developers to the 17.5 acres the MTA owns around the subway station. CRA officials see development on the MTA site as the spark to revitalization. A consultant is scheduled to make a recommendation soon on how the transit agency should proceed.

Meanwhile, Lillian Burkenheim, the CRA executive in charge of the North Hollywood project, is struggling to find a business to move in near the corner of Lankershim and Chandler boulevards by the time the subway opens in June. Today, there is nothing but empty lots and boarded-up buildings.

“I’m going to work really hard to make sure that at least something is on the corner [near the subway exit] that looks interesting,” Burkenheim said. Her goal is to bring in a shop so that commuters “don’t come out and look at nothing.”

The CRA’s longer-term plans for the properties to the south of the subway are more ambitious, where developer J. Allen Radford has proposed building office towers and 10 film sound stages. That project, heavily dependent on public subsidies, plays a key role in CRA planning for North Hollywood.

The subway and Radford’s project will benefit from the redevelopment that has already taken place, said Larry Kosmont, a Los Angeles real estate consultant.

“Those two things could provide the critical mass to get North Hollywood over the hump,” said Kosmont, whose company is advising the transit agency on how to develop its property in the area.

But just how delicate the balance is was shown last summer, when Walt Disney Co. announced that it will build a movie studio of its own in nearby Glendale.

Officials worry that because Disney is already the major tenant in the two large North Hollywood office projects--the old Hewlett-Packard building and the Academy--any relocation would create a huge loss of jobs. Disney’s new studio could also potentially lure away customers from Radford’s planned studio.

“It sounds good, but you have a slowdown in production in entertainment,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. “You have the mouse and their Grand Central [campus]. It’s tough.”

Radford and the redevelopment agency already have begun to scale back, dropping plans for new housing and cutting the overall size by two-thirds, to 500,000 total square feet.

In addition, any project is not likely to break ground until 2001, later than originally planned.

Burkenheim said that even the scaled-back project will require large subsidies. As a result, she has asked Radford for more changes, scrapping underground parking, and shrinking the height of the office towers.

“We’re not going to see anything close to the 20-story building they proposed,” Burkenheim said.

As another hope for the future of North Hollywood, the agency has wholeheartedly embraced the fledgling arts district of theaters and galleries, the idea of theater owners and Chamber of Commerce officials.

The CRA has become a major sponsor of the annual NoHo Arts Festival and has provided loans and grants to theater groups. In the last decade, about 20 small theaters have moved into the area. Troupes like Actor’s Alley and Renegade Theater hope their productions, along with the subway, will put North Hollywood back in the spotlight.

“The potential now is quite good,” said Bob Cane, head of Actor’s Alley, which has renovated the historic El Portal Theater. “There are a lot of possibilities. Hopefully, it will all create some positive interest in the area.”

One who will not wait to see what happens is Steve Soboroff, a senior advisor to Mayor Richard Riordan.

Soboroff, a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, recently sold a vacant warehouse he owned just north of the subway station. He has had too many good offers to pass up, he said.

Selling out, Soboroff said in an interview, isn’t a sign of lack of confidence in the future of the North Hollywood project.

“I don’t think [property owners] have felt the benefit” of redevelopment, Soboroff said. “It hasn’t kicked in yet. But these things take a lot of time.”