Debate Rises on Plan for Westwood Village

Westwood Village, once a bustling shopping and entertainment center, has fallen on hard times in the last decade, failing to attract crowds of either residents or tourists.

Developer Ira Smedra thinks he knows the way out of the village’s economic stagnation: a 469,000-square-foot project he calls Village Center Westwood that would add movie theaters, retail space, a supermarket and a public library. The plan would also close Glendon Avenue to motor traffic to create a pedestrian plaza.

The city Planning Commission went to the Westside on Thursday to hear reaction to the plan, and it found assessments ranging from accolades to vitriol.

“We have before us today a marvelous opportunity to revitalize Westwood Village and to do so in a way that both respects and restores the village’s unique history and charm,” said City Councilman Mike Feuer, publicly supporting the Smedra plan for the first time.

But critics at Thursday’s hearing were unmoved.

“There’s no need to sell out Westwood to Mr. Smedra in order to get revitalization,” said Terry Tegnazian, co-president of Save Westwood Village. “It’s going to happen naturally as the economic climate changes. It’s happening today as we speak.”

Thursday’s hearing in a West Los Angeles conference room attracted about 200 people.

Feuer, whose district includes Westwood, said the recession, some well-publicized acts of violence in Westwood in the last decade and inflated rents had left the village unable to compete with developments such as Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade and the Century City Shopping Center.

But he said he is confident that Village Center Westwood would reverse the trend.

“For the first time we have both the necessary foundation in place and a project capable of serving as a magnet for local residents as well as for new retailers,” Feuer said.

Village Center Westwood would have 3,400 movie seats, 164 senior citizen housing units, a 12,000-square-foot library, the football-field-sized pedestrian plaza designed to accommodate music and theater performances, and the supermarket and drugstore.

But opponents do not want Smedra to be allowed an amendment to the specific plan, adopted in the 1980s, which caps the number of theater seats in Westwood at 6,030.

Some speakers at Thursday’s meeting said the movie theaters--and the crowds of young people attracted to them--were primarily responsible for the village’s decline as a ritzy shopping area.

Feuer and others contested that notion, asserting that in the 1990s, movie theaters draw visitors into shopping areas.