ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Summit Panels Consider Hollywood Livability hree panels at the 23rd annual Hollywood Economic Heyman said the concept evolved as they decided to T Development Summit focused on “How to build a create a mini-campus by renovating a nuisance alley. Their more livable Hollywood”. larger plan is to add another three hotels and to create their The “Work” panel, moderated by Jerry Neuman of Liner Law, considered how the community benefits when major companies move to Hollywood. James Broenen of Fender Guitar said his firm was attracted to Hollywood because this is where the artists are. Patrick Bynum of Viacom said when the firm looked at options for consolidation, Hollywood was the only option for them because of the intense creative community here and the energy and legacy of Hollywood. “It was almost like coming home,” he said. Kareem Saleh of ZestFinance said that Hollywood was a terrific place to start a tech company and to live and work. He noted that his firm tries to patronize small local “own little village” like the Meatpacking District in New York. They also want to rebrand the neighborhood of the Cahuenga Corridor to SoHo (South of Hollywood). “A corridor is not a destination,” he stressed.
businesses and offers local dry cleaning and car wash services to their employees. Bynum said Viacom has a strong corporate community push and has worked closely with local organizations like the Police Activities League and youth mentoring programs. Broenen said that Fender Guitar is all about music education and restoring music programs to local schools. Their goal is to have a program up by next year. Ashley Gochnauer of the Kimpton Everly Hotel said each hotel is given latitude at the local level to choose causes to support and has the ability to choose local products to feature at the hotel. She added that they try to hire a staff that has an intimate knowledge of the neighborhood and hired employees from the Redbury when that hotel closed recently. Angela Babcock of Stratiscope moderated the second “Create” panel. Her two guests were Richard Heyman and Grant King of the Relevant Group. They discussed their “place-making” efforts along Selma Avenue. King noted their original vision from 10 years ago to bring a single hotel to Hollywood had expanded. “We wanted to bring the ‘A’ Game to Hollywood,” he said and noted that the Tao Group has four of the top10 restaurants in the U.S. The goal was to create a destination that would attract visitors from across Los Angeles. There will be four restaurants in the complex that surrounds their Dream Hotel.
The final panel was moderated by Phil Hart of Hart Realty Advisors and focused on the “Live” aspect, discussing what residents wanted to see in the new Hollywood. Li Wen of Gensler and a condo owner said that urban design is incredibly important as far as how we mix uses in Hollywood. Longtime community activist Nyla Arslanian said the number-one issue for residents related to development was traffic. “We need to work more together and to hear of some of the things being done,” she added. Debbie Wehbe, another community leader, said that one of the major concerns of the residential community is that often
developers arrive with the notion that they don’t need to listen to the residential community. “The connection needs to be deeper and the residents need to understand that the businesses will serve the needs of the residents,” she urged. Dan Sadleir, a millennial and apartment dweller, with his own business, Lights, Camera, Body!, said he would like to see more community events targeted for the locals with advertising to make them aware of the events. “This would help pull us all together,” he commented.
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