Panorama City plan: project includes condos, retail.

An Indianapolis-based developer has plans to redevelop a nine-acre site in the heart of Panorama City that once housed a Montgomery Ward store.

The move comes almost five years to the day since the Montgomery Ward store closed, and about three years after city officials and the Urban Design Assistance Team, a volunteer team of architects, historians and planners developed a vision for the area that would include mixed-use housing along with other commercial properties and parks.

The plan, which Maefield Development expects to begin presenting to the surrounding community in coming weeks, is to construct about 500 condominium units in high rise structures along with a 415,000-square-foot retail center with a major anchor such as Target and other, smaller shops.

"We think the condominiums will be affordable for people that live in the community," said Lucinda Starrett, partner and chair of the land use group at Latham & Watkins, the law firm that represents Maefield in the entitlement process. "There hasn't been any new housing built in that area in a long time, and there are a lot of families that live there."

Maefield has met with city officials including Los Angeles City Councilman Alex Padilla, and with the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, among others, and will begin to meet with community groups shortly.

Meetings so far have drawn praise for the developer's plans.

"The councilman believes that Panorama City can be the new North Hollywood, and this is a prime place for mixed use," said Raul Bocanegra, economic development deputy to Padilla. "This is kind of in the same spirit as the Urban Design Assistance Team. It's definitely taking advantage of Van Nuys and Panorama City as a corridor that needs housing and retail."

Panorama City was a neighborhood virtually created as a result of a General Motors factory that once operated there. But since the factory closed in the 1990s, the neighborhood, and its large population of mostly Latino blue collar and middle-class residents, has often been overlooked in the redevelopment boom that has taken over other parts of the Valley.

The ambitious plan developed for the area through a partnership between the San Fernando Valley chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Economic Alliance, had no teeth, but it has, apparently, drawn interest from developers in addition to Maefield.

"When we did the original study with AIA it immediately started getting attention from the real estate community," said Bruce Ackerman, president of the Economic Alliance, who expressed enthusiasm for Maefield's proposal. "I had another developer in talking about the Robinsons-May Clearance Center. They want to do a mixed use project."

The rising cost of construction coupled with the cost of land nevertheless raises questions over whether a project in Panorama City can be developed at prices affordable to the surrounding community, which has an average household income in the mid-$30,000-range.

At the same time, the neighborhood houses several large employers, including Kaiser Permanente, which could potentially provide a customer base for housing.

City officials said they expect to see a certain percentage of the housing dedicated to workforce housing and they are prepared to allow for higher density in the housing component to accomplish that.

"Alex is not concerned about a certain amount of density," Bocanegra said.

Ironically, Padilla's first job was at the Montgomery Ward store that once stood on the site, at Cedros Avenue and Roscoe Boulevard, and he has long been a proponent for a mixed use project to replace it.

The site is part of a Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency project area and the CRA has some funding to help encourage redevelopment, although it is too soon to know what assistance the agency might provide.

Maefield, which was founded in 1991, has developed more than 5.5 million square feet of retail and office space and 4,900 housing units including Sunset Millennium, a 100,000-square-foot retail project in West Hollywood.

Ward, which filed bankruptcy, was sold to K-Mart, and that company currently holds the title on the property.