Millennium in Hollywood is our nightmare as well

While the 1.1 million square foot,  $664 million  Hollywood Millennium Project at Hollywood and Vine is two miles north of Larchmont Village, it will have a negative impact on all the neighborhoods served by the Larchmont Chronicle.

During the four-year construction period, gridlock will paralyze Vine Street from Hollywood Blvd. to Franklin Ave., delaying access to and from the 101 Freeway and the Valley. This will cause traffic to be diverted onto smaller side streets, creating significant safety and quality of life issues for these residential neighborhoods.

But once the construction is completed, the gridlock will only get worse as 1,300 permanent workers, the residents of 500 luxury condos, 200 luxury hotel guests, diners, sports club members, and thousands of gawkers pour in and out of this mixed used facility, competing with the existing traffic flows, including the thousands of cars associated with the Hollywood Bowl and weekend traffic.

Local streets will also be impacted because the self-serving developer has failed to provide adequate off street parking, playing off the dubious concept of Transit Oriented Development where the BMW crowd will obviously flock to public transit.

This “Alien Implant” with its two soaring skyscrapers will destroy the look and feel of Hollywood, dwarfing the world- famous Capitol Records building. One of the slender towers is 55 stories (600 feet), four times the height of any other area building. This development on only 4.5 acres will overwhelm the local infrastructure, whether it is streets, sidewalks, water, electricity, and gas as well as the ability of the understaffed police and fire departments to respond to public safety and emergencies.
But the most distressing aspect of this monster development is the underhanded process by which a slick talking, money grubbing, New York-based developer with plenty of cash is trying to multiply the density of this project at the expense of Hollywood’s 190,000 residents.

Rather than proceed with the Hollywood Millennium Project, the City Council should reject this disproportionately large project, revise the recently approved Hollywood Community Plan that was based on flawed population assumptions, and redo the traffic study so that it complies with the state environmental laws and takes into account the impact of the 58 projects that are planned for Hollywood.

While Hollywood’s battle to preserve its community is not our fight, the same forces that want to destroy its very fabric will surely be looking to develop oversized and out-of- character developments in our neighborhood.

Hollywood’s battle of today is our battle of tomorrow.  We need to stick together.To get involved, join Councilmen Tom LaBonge and Eric Garcetti in opposing this monstrosity.

The Squeaky Wheel, by Jack Humphreville

Category: Community