Updated Promenade 2035 Plan Features Smaller Stadium, Affordable Housing

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has amended its plans for the Promenade 2035 project, which aims to overhaul the Woodland Hills shopping mall into a 34-acre mixed-use center featuring street-side retail stores and restaurants as well as apartments, hotels and an entertainment stadium. The project has an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. The updated proposal submitted to the L.A. Planning Commission specifies that 15 percent of the project’s 1,000-plus residential units will be designated for low-income households and local workers. Of that 15 percent, one third will go to workers who make roughly between 100 and 150 percent of the median income, such as firefighters, police officers and teachers; one third will be reserved for employees and stakeholders of the Promenade and its tenants; and one third will go to households making 50 percent or less of the median income. Those rent-restricted units will be located in the northwest and northeast quadrants of the Promenade. The other major modification to URW’s plan is a reduction of the size of the proposed entertainment and sports center, which the mall developer believes will be a boon to the neighborhood. In response to community pushback, URW now plans to shrink the square footage of the stadium by more than 40 percent, from 320,000 square feet to 181,550 square feet. In August, a group of Woodland Hills residents filed a 13-page appeal with city officials against URW’s proposal. They took specific issue with the arena component, arguing the stadium would attract rough crowds and exacerbate pollution and traffic. The new plan also reduces the stadium’s height by 45 percent from 155 feet to 85 feet. And where the original plan called for the center to contain 15,000 seats, the amended proposal cuts the number of seats by 30 percent or more — the plan now proposes either a fully enclosed stadium with 10,000 seats or an open-air design with 7,500 seats. URW sees opportunity to host minor league baseball or soccer games there. “Having spent many months meeting with residents and listening to their concerns, we are pleased to submit revised plans which reflect community input on this vision for the Promenade property, while keeping within the goals of the Warner Center 2035 Specific Plan,” Larry Green, URW’s executive vice president of development, said in a statement. In a statement, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said: “I have worked closely with URW to ensure that this project, with its vast opportunity, adds critical low income and workforce housing, good-paying jobs as well as numerous community benefits. … People who work in Warner Center should be able to afford to live there and this is a step in the right direction.” The revisions will be reviewed by the city’s Planning Commission in March.