Playa Vista — A Lesson in Leadership and Perseverance

by Gary Toebben

This past week, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City of Los Angeles celebrated the news that Yahoo! Inc. signed a long-term lease at the Collective Campus in Playa Vista. Playa Vista has emerged as a national model for urban living and high tech jobs, but turning back the clock, Playa Vista almost never happened.     

Back in 1987, then L.A. City Council President Pat Russell lost re-election to environmentalist, coastal commissioner and Venice neighborhood activist Ruth Galanter — running in large measure on a platform of strong opposition to Summa Corporation’s high-rise plans for Playa Vista. Following Councilwoman Galanter’s election, Summa Corporation pulled the plug and Maguire Thomas Partners took control of the 1,087-acre site located under the bluffs of Westchester and adjacent to Marina del Rey.

Maguire Thomas’ senior partner Nelson Rising hired some of the world’s most respected urban planners and architects to create a new vision for the site. Equipped with two slide projectors (long before PowerPoint), Rising met with neighbors and activists alike — no group being too small in explaining how New Urbanism could work in L.A.

Rising’s engagement with Councilwoman Galanter, the Friends of Ballona Wetlands, the local and regional business community, neighborhood groups and organized labor led to the crafting of a compromise development plan. This new vision included the restoration of the Ballona Wetlands and a commitment to affordable housing.

Phase One of Playa Vista was approved by the L.A. City Council in 1993, with Councilwoman Galanter’s support, who at the time said, "No matter what I did, somebody was going to be unhappy."  Today, all of L.A. should be happy with the result. We should also be appreciative that since 1993, Playa Vista has successfully defended itself against more than 25 California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuits.

In 2009, Phase Two, the 111-acre “heart of Playa Vista” was approved under then Playa Vista President Steve Soboroff, with the promise of bringing new jobs and new housing to Los Angeles. Today, Randy Johnson is President of Playa Vista and he, along with Rising, Soboroff, Peter Denniston, Patricia Sinclair and Doug Gardner, all deserve our appreciation.   

Councilmember Mike Bonin, who now represents Playa Vista and once worked for Councilwoman Galanter, said "Playa Vista is a perfect home for smart, innovative tech firms, and Yahoo! will add to a growing energy and spirit as Playa Vista becomes the real hub of Silicon Beach. This shows that Los Angeles is open for business and ready to compete with the best."

To be open for business a community must be open to the construction of buildings to house those businesses and their employees. That’s why efforts like CEQA modernization and the regulatory streamlining that Mayor Garcetti has proposed are essential to the future of our region as a place to live and work. As Councilwoman Galanter said, someone will be unhappy, but the best interests of the broader community will be served.   

And that's The Business Perspective.