By Lynne Bronstein
Observer Reporter
It took all summer but on August 25 the City Council, after what seemed like one postponement after another, finally approved an implementation agreement for developing the "Triangle" site at Venice, Washington, and Exposition Boulevards, at the Expo Line station.
The joint agreement of the City, the Successor Agency to the Redevelopment Agency, and the developer, Lowe Enterprises Real Estate Group, will allow development of a multi-use complex in the Triangle, with low-cost housing, business office space, restaurants, shops, and parking.
The public hearing on the agreement was postponed repeatedly after initially being introduced on July 14. The reason given was that negotiations regarding terms of land sale between the developer and the City/Successor Agency had not yet concluded.
Staff recommended that the joint public hearing on the agreement be continued to July 28. At that time, and again on August 11 for the same reason, the Council/Successor Agency decided to continue the joint public hearing to August 25, 2014.
Conveniently, the public hearing remained "open" by vote, at the August 25 City Council meeting. As there were no speakers signed up, and no one on the Council had any comments other than the desire to approve the agreement, Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells asked that the public hearing be closed.
The terms of payment (the subject of the negotiations) were discussed at a closed session prior to the regular Council/Successor Agency meeting. A representative of the developer was present, along with City Manager John Nachbar, City Manager/Executive Director; Sol Blumenfeld, Community Development Director/Assistant Executive Director; Todd Tipton, and other parties.
Under the agreement, a number of city-owned parcels and Successor Agency-owned parcels will be sold to the Lowe Enterprises to be developed into a project including a transit plaza, office, retail, restaurants, residential and hotels, surrounding 1/3 acre of central open space above two subterranean parking levels providing approximately 1,600 parking spaces on the 5.52 acre site. The parking will serve the Project and Expo Transit Station.
The Successor Agency parcels are to be conveyed to the developer for
$8.2 million, while the city parcels will be sold for $15.6 million less the credits to the land price as defined in the Implementation Agreement and the Health and Safety Code Section 33433 Summary Report. The project is anticipated to generate revenue for the taxing entities through land sale procedures and future sales, property, and other tax revenues.
Council member Andrew Weissman called the implementation "a spectacular opportunity for Culver City and for Lowe---it will lead to the ultimate development at the Transit site."
Weissman noted that the project had been "decades in the making" and joked that it had begin "when Sol Blumenfeld was a baby." The plans to develop the Triangle had begun in 2000 with the city and former Redevelopment Agency announcing plans for a Transit-Oriented Development on the Triangle site.
In other actions, the Council presented certificates of commendation to four retiring members of the police department, officers Leon Moore and Sue Sperling, Sergeant Mark Repucci, and Senior Jailer Desmond Burns.
Council member Mehaul O'Leary, in presenting the commendation to fellow Irishman Burns, joked that he was a great person to meet "except you wouldn't have wanted to meet him when he was working."
The Council also heard from and commended participants in the El Marino Language Academy's Sister City program, who had visited Kaizuka, Japan (one of Culver City's four sister cities) over the summer.
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