Massive Resort in Universal City Planned by MCA

MCA Inc. plans to double development on its Universal City property over the next 25 years by adding $3 billion in new hotels, shops, restaurants, offices, concert halls and sound stages--creating the first “destination resort” in Los Angeles and a massive new home for its sprawling entertainment businesses.

The company said Wednesday that the expansion will create 23,000 construction jobs and add 14,000 permanent jobs at its 415-acre property overlooking the Cahuenga Pass during the next 2 1/2 decades. The plan calls for development on the property to increase to 11.2 million square feet from the current 5.4 million square feet.

Company spokeswoman Christine Hanson said MCA intends to create a “family-oriented” resort surrounded by open space and lagoons--a first for Los Angeles--that would generate $2 billion annually in new economic activity for the area and $75 million in tax revenue.

The proposal to eventually add 5.8 million square feet, if the market will bear it, was presented in a news release that offered few details and no diagram or drawings to describe exactly what MCA envisions.

Although neighboring homeowners fear that an even larger theme-park complex would increase noise, traffic and illumination problems, city and county elected officials generally expressed satisfaction with the proposal. They observed that the entertainment and tourism industries have surpassed aerospace as the region’s leading moneymaker. But they acknowledged that the plan must clear many regulatory and government permit hurdles along the way.

“The destination resort idea is attractive--it would be unique for the county and it wouldn’t harm the area,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who was briefed on the plan earlier in the week. A destination resort is an enclosed complex with lodging, restaurants and entertainment, such as Disneyland in Anaheim.

“But I need to know how they plan to mitigate traffic impacts,” Yaroslavsky said. “This project will get a lot of scrutiny.”

About two-thirds of Universal City is in unincorporated county territory.

Over the next 1 1/2 months, MCA will meet with county planning officials to determine the scope of an environmental impact review, which the company expects to complete by September. A comment period would follow its publication, and hearings before city and county planning administrators--which officials said might lead to an unprecedented joint session--could commence by early next year.

Universal City, which has grown over the past 80 years on the former site of a chicken ranch, has had an uneasy relationship with its residential neighbors. Homeowner groups have accused it of going about development in a piecemeal fashion, never presenting its view of the big picture and letting traffic pile up in neighborhood streets.

But this time, Hanson said, MCA has surveyed its neighbors and held focus groups, and plans to reach out to the community for suggestions during the design process.

“They bit the bullet and came forward with their vision for the coming 25 years,” said Renee Weitzer, senior planning deputy for Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro. “Now in their EIR they have to prove they can mitigate (the undesirable effects of) what they plan to build.”

F. Michael Wester, president of the Cahuenga Pass Property Owners Assn., called the proposal “a good first step.” But he said that members of his group do not believe that they have been adequately consulted and he complained that MCA’s community advisory meetings have resulted in vague answers to specific questions.

Still, the Universal City development does fit within the city’s general plan. Public planning officials wish to move the region away from strip development--such as that along Ventura Boulevard--in favor of high-density development of centers such as Mid-Wilshire, Downtown, Hollywood and Warner Center.

“Concentrating more development in an area that is already highly developed makes a lot of sense from an urban design point of view,” said William Fulton, editor of California Planning and Development Report.

“The flip side, though, is transit,” he said. “If you don’t link these areas well--and up to now these areas have not been well-linked--it can be a disaster.”

Fulton observed that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Red Line subway is to link the centers by early next century. Tunneling for the Red Line linkup between Hollywood and Universal City is expected to begin late this year. Work on the North Hollywood-Universal City tunnel began this week.

Likewise, USC architecture professor Robert S. Harris said he would like to see Universal City become less isolated from its surrounding urban development.

“Now it’s like a shopping mall,” said Harris, director of graduate studies at USC’s School of Architecture. “As they expand, I’d like to see them join the streets around them and create a richer urban fabric rather than a disconnected village.”

MCA also is expanding its Universal Studios Florida property in Orlando, adding a second theme park and five hotels, and is planning a theme park in Japan.

Harrison Price, a Torrance-based attractions industry consultant who has worked for MCA on various projects, predicted that there would be plenty of room in the amusement market for the additional development planned at Universal City.

“I see no evidence of saturation,” he said, noting that the company has gone from 600,000 visitors in 1966, when the studio tour first opened, to more than 10 million last year at the combined attractions that now include the Cineplex Odeon movie theaters, Citywalk and the Universal Amphitheater.

Steve Clark, president of Management Resources, a leisure-industry consulting firm in Tustin, said he has no doubt that MCA can afford the expansion: “I’m sure they’re confident that in that time frame they could easily handle that kind of investment.”

MCA, built around Universal Studios, was one of the largest entertainment conglomerates in the nation when it was purchased in 1990 for $6.1 billion by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd., a Japan-based consumer electronics concern with $70 billion in annual sales.

MCA’s success in recent years has been fueled by blockbuster movies such as “Jurassic Park,” and “Back to the Future” as well as its theme park properties. MCA’s record labels include such lucrative acts as Elton John, Guns N’ Roses and George Strait. The company’s television productions include “Murder, She Wrote” and “Coach.”