Warner Overhaul Spares Restaurant : Studio: As approved, the $75-million modernization plan calls for moving, not demolishing, the Formosa Cafe.
HOLLYWOOD — The egg rolls and mai tais were on the house at the Formosa Cafe on Monday night as representatives of Warner Bros. Hollywood Studios and one-time critics celebrated approval of a plan for the overhaul the studio that once threatened the venerable watering hole. It took only minutes for the $75-million modernization plan, which calls for moving the Formosa rather than demolishing it, to win final clearance from the West Hollywood City Council on Monday on a 5-0 vote. “Essentially everyone got what they wanted,†said Eddie Martell, a member of Friends of the Formosa, which formed two years ago to oppose original Warner plans to knock down the half-century-old restaurant to make way for a parking garage on Santa Monica Boulevard. “It’s been a long road for both sides.†City officials hope that road leads to economic recovery for the depressed East End neighborhood, where prostitutes sell themselves just outside the drab walls of the 11-acre studio. The approved plan requires Warner to improve street lighting and leave room for newsstands or other sidewalk businesses along the front wall as a way to cut crime by encouraging pedestrian traffic. The City Council added other last-minute conditions to the 10- to 15-year renovation plan, including requirements that demolition materials be recycled and that the studio host city job fairs and other economic development drives. The council backed away from an earlier proposal by Councilwoman Abbe Land that the studio hire West Hollywood residents before looking elsewhere for help. Warner executives said union rules guide studio hiring and added that the many production companies who use the facilities bring their own employees, making a “hire West Hollywood†provision unworkable. “It was not really feasible to make that requirement,†Land said Tuesday. “It would have been hard to monitor.†Instead, the studio will provide production companies with information packets letting them know where to advertise for workers and shop for services in West Hollywood. The Warner proposal enjoyed a remarkable turnaround after encountering a tempest of criticism in 1991, mainly over plans to demolish the Formosa. The outcry rattled Warner executives, and they dropped that idea. They replaced the architect and hired a consulting company to smooth relations with residents and community groups by taking in their concerns. The public-relations strategy worked. By the time the proposal made it to the city’s Planning Commission last fall, and then to the City Council, it had answered many of those worries--especially on crime--and had strong community backing. It helped that city officials were eager to hang on to their biggest show-business tenant and that residents were desperate for an East End renewal. “Residents and merchants of the East End are eager for any kind of improvements,†said John Jakupcak, an associate planner for the city who oversaw the Warner proposal from the start. James K. Suhr, Warner vice president for real estate operations, echoed that conclusion in contrasting the studio’s relatively smooth ride with other similar proposals at Fox Studios in West Los Angeles and Sony Pictures’ studio in Culver City. The two others have moved much more slowly, due in part to neighbors’ resistance. “(Warner) was much more of a community issue than a development issue,†he said. The modernization project will be done in four phases over as long as 15 years, probably starting with the construction of two new sound stages in the next year or two. When the project is complete, Warner will have demolished five historic buildings within the 74-year-old complex and added four sound stages, two office buildings, more than 100,000 square feet of post-production facilities and two parking garages. The Formosa Cafe, once a favorite gathering spot for such stars as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe, is to be moved 250 feet to clear the way for construction of a garage at Santa Monica Boulevard and Formosa Avenue. The move will probably not take place for six to eight years, Suhr said. “There’s not going to be cranes going up tomorrow morning,†he said. *
Residents are most eager to see the improvements outside the complex, which is currently fronted by a long wall on Santa Monica Boulevard. The wall is to be broken up with openings and a “Howard Hughes court†to commemorate the former filmmaker’s private entrance. Trees are to be planted and street lights added, along with the planned sidewalk businesses. Passersby will be greeted by three-dimensional movie billboards on the side of a planned parking garage on Santa Monica Boulevard. A foot bridge connecting twin towers will create an entrance on Formosa Avenue. The project also means a bonanza for the cash-strapped city. The studio will have to pay a $670,000 public-benefit fee in exchange for being allowed to exceed normal height limits on a 12-story office building, the twin towers and one of the parking garages. In an effort to encourage big development, the city had designated the site one of several in town where such limits would be waived if the projects benefited the public significantly. An additional $2.2 million in fees will be set aside for open space and for affordable housing and child-care programs in the city.
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