CRA approves USC Plaza development, but pulls the plug on Little Tokyo project.

CRA approves USC Plaza development, but pulls the plug on Little Tokyo project

The Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency has approved one massive commercial development project and officially pulled the plug on another sizable project.

Approved at the CRA's July 19 meeting was the $100 million USC Plaza that the University of Southern California is proposing to build across Figueroa Street from its main campus.

The project, which calls for nearly a million square feet to be built on a 4.6-acre plot, is the largest CRA project ever approved south of the Santa Monica (10) Freeway.

It is being heralded by neighboring merchants and city planners alike as a catalyst for the future economic revitalization of the Hoover Redevelopment Project area surrounding USC.

At the same meeting, the CRA officially killed a plan by Los Angeles developers Michael Kamen and Ben Frankel to build a 55,000-square-foot retail center in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles.

Kamen and Frankel backed off from their project after an adjacent retail center owned by Kamen, Brunswig Square, took three years to lease up.

Kamen and Frankel, through their partnership, San Nana Go Ltd., are now trying to unload their vacant Little Tokyo plot. But they declined last week to specify their asking price.

Meanwhile, the CRA is conducting an in-house study to determine the best use for the site, reported Gloria Uchida, the CRA's project manager for Little Tokyo.

The study should be done in 30 to 60 days, Uchida said.

While the Little Tokyo project is back to square one, USC Plaza continued its steady journey through the city's development pipeline.

USC Plaza is being developed by Figueroa of USC's development subsidiary, Corridor Associates, a group comprised of USC's development subsidiary, called USC Real Estate Development Corp., and a partnership headed by Jones Commercial Development Corp.

The four-phase project calls for 755,000 square feet of office space, 30,000 square feet of retail space, a 250-room hotel, and 1,600 parking spaces to be built over the next 14 years.

The massive complex, even after mitigation measures are in place, would "significantly increase" the area's traffic congestion, air pollution and noise pollution, according to the project's environmental impact report.

But the CRA concluded "the beneficial social and economic effects of the proposed USC Plaza development override the unavoidable significant impacts identified in the EIR."

Further, the CRA agreed to let stand four components of the project that violate current zoning law. Specifically, permission was granted for a 22-story office tower; although current law restricts building heights to 18 stories. Also, permission was granted to provide fewer hotel parking spaces and truck-loading spaces than required by current law. And permission was granted to block the view of buildings on the USC campus, also in violation of current zoning laws.

The developers still must convince the Los Angeles Planning Commission to amend a pre-existing community plan to allow for the proposed zoning exemptions. And then the project must get final approval from the Los Angeles City Council.

But Oscar Jauregui, CRA's Hoover Redevelopment Project manager, said he was confident the developers would secure those needed approvals.

USC Plaza will most likely be approved by the planning commission before year end, he said. And groundbreaking on the first phase, a 168,000-square-foot office building with 10,000 square feet of retail space, is expected in late 1991.

The university has already agreed to lease about 60 percent of the first-phase building's space.

The CRA currently owns about 30 percent of USC's proposed development site. But, as part of its July 19 approval, the CRA agreed to sell that land to the developers for $3.9 million.