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I missed this on Friday. Curbed LA had the story on plans for a big, multi-tower development around the quirky (and landmarked locally and nationally) Crossroads of the World complex in Hollywood. The seven-acre, mixed-use development would include a hotel, apartment and condo towers and new retail space. The 1936 Crossroads of the World would remain, with a revived retail presence. Sounds as if the Blessed Sacrament Church to the east is not involved, but many other nearby buildings would be razed.
From Bianca Barragan's Friday story:
In addition to the reintroduction of retail at the Crossroads, the project will create eight new mixed-use buildings rising on parts of the two blocks between the complex and Highland Avenue to the west, and the block immediately to the north of the complex on Selma: a 308-room, 31-story hotel, a 32-story apartment tower, and a 30-story condo tower with 950 units total (including 70 units of designated affordable housing), 95,000 square feet of office space, and a total of 185,000 square feet of retail/commercial uses (including the 60,000 square feet at Crossroads). The shorter buildings range from two to six stories tall. All the new buildings would have retail and commercial components on the ground floor; parking for the complex—2,596 total spaces—would all be underground.
A pedestrian paseo would cut through the whole of the new complex, leading diagonally from the Crossroads spire to the southwest corner of McCadden and Selma. The overhaul would also include a realignment of Las Palmas Avenue at Sunset Boulevard (where it currently jogs a bit) "to enhance connectivity and automobile and pedestrian safety," according to a project description furnished by the project reps.
Also:
- A tipster says that the Marlborough School is moving ahead with plans to demolish five homes it owns on Arden Boulevard, inside the Windsor Square Historic Preservation Overlay Zone. City officials say, and apparently the local residents' association agrees, that the private school has longstanding rights to tear down homes within the city's preservation zone.
While I'm in Windsor Square, the home of the late Dorothy Chandler at 455 S. Lorraine Boulevard has been restored to "its Beaux Arts beauty" after neighbors pressured the city about changes made by a new owner. The home once inhabited by the Chandlers, the former LA Times ownership family, is a designated city historic-cultural monument. Photo from the Larchmont Buzz.- Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw may have sold their seven-bedroom Broad Beach double-lot house for $35 million, per Variety.
