ACTION ALERT! Massive Abbot Kinney Hotel Complex Coming Up For A Vote THIS Wednesday!

Architect's rendering of the Abbot Kinney Hotel Complex, corner of Broadway and Abbot Kinney Blvd.

Just in time for the holidays, Dan Abrams and his development partners have delivered a nice, shiny lump of coal to Venice in the form of revamped plans for a block-long hotel/mall complex on Abbot Kinney Blvd. Now that their new plans have finally been made public, we've learned the developers are still asking for precedent-setting variances for height, the project still has significant issues with mass and scale and will still cause traffic gridlock and huge parking headaches for the surrounding neighborhoods.

They are rushing the project through the Venice Land Use and Planning Committee (LUPC) this Wednesday, December 18 - only a week before Christmas, the timing of which will conveniently suppress community participation. Worse, the developers have known for over a week this would come up for a vote and have been rallying their supporters with "suggested facts" (no, I'm not making this up), to share with their neighbors while the rest of the community was kept in the dark.

LUPC has been inundated with emails in support of the project while they have yet to hear from opponents.

We need you to act NOW.

WRITE AN EMAIL VOICING YOUR OPPOSITION TO THE PROJECT AS PLANNED:

Even if you've written letters in opposition to the hotel before, we need to you to write again. Please send your email to the following addresses:  Board@VeniceNC.org, lupc@VeniceNC.org, mike.bonin@lacity.org, tricia.keane@lacity.org, veniceforchange@gmail.com

The project's address is 1033 S Abbott Kinney Blvd, Venice, CA 90291: It must be included at the top of any correspondence.

ATTEND THE HEARING

WHEN: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18  - 7:30PM
WHERE: Oakwood Rec Center - 767 7th Avenue (corner of 7th and Oakwood)

Numbers matter. We believe LUPC members will vote in favor of the project as proposed unless we convince them otherwise.  So we need as many people to attend as possible.  The project is second on the agenda and is supposed to be heard at 8pm. We believe they will try to keep the meeting on time. Get there early and fill out a speaker card.

Here are the real - not suggested - facts about the Abbot Kinney Hotel Complex. Include them in the emails you write and the talking points you use during the meeting.

IT'S TOO HIGH: In his letter to supporters,  project architect David Hertz wrote "the project fully compliant with the Venice Specific Plan and Local Coastal Plan and we are not asking for any exceptions to these plans whatsoever."  Hertz wasn't telling the truth. The developer may have knocked off the 4th floor in October, but he's come back with a design that's still asking for a precedent-setting height exemption to the Venice Specific Plan.

IT'S TOO BIG:  The hotel complex as currently proposed includes an 87-room hotel (down only 5 rooms from the October proposal, with two of those now apartments for some reason), a 3,500 sq ft restaurant/bar, a separate coffee bar on Electric, a 1,500 sq ft spa on Electric and Westminster, a 2,500 sq ft retail space on Westminster and Abbot Kinney, and a 2,444 sq ft poolside bar area.

It still takes up the entire block between Broadway and Westminster, with a partial carve-out for two parcels the developers don't own. There's nothing else on Abbot Kinney that even comes close to it in terms of mass and scale.

To get an idea of what that really looks like, take a gander at these two drawings below. These are the most recent plans submitted by the architect. I've highlighted the existing structures - Joe's, Venice Place, and the Baptist Church - in orange. The hotel complex, highlighted in purple, dwarfs those structures by comparison. Click on either image to see them full size.

Hotel complex on the Abbot Kinney side. Existing buildings are in orange. The proposed hotel complex is in purple. 
Click on the image to see full size.

Hotel complex viewed from Broadway. Existing buildings are in orange. The proposed hotel complex is in purple.  
Click on the image to see full size.

THERE'S NOT ENOUGH PARKING: In fact, in this revamped version, the developer is offering only 160 parking spaces, 12 less than the 172 he was offering back in October.  That's supposed to suffice for all 87 hotel rooms, plus three restaurants, a coffee bar, a spa and 2,500 sq ft of retail/cafe space. By the developers own estimates, the hotel and three restaurants alone will have 160 employees (a low figure, since they aren't figuring in the 2,500 sq ft retail/cafe space proposed for the corner of Westminster and Abbot Kinney).  

In his letter to supporters,  project architect David Hertz wrote "the project allows employees to park for free." The numbers I just listed above show how ridiculous this statement is. Unless, of course, he means allows employees to park for free on our streets.

TRAFFIC WILL STILL BE A NIGHTMARE: A new traffic report released by the City of LA states the hotel complex will add close to 700 net new car trips a day. Bizarrely, DOT seems to think this won't be of "significant" impact to our neighborhood. But tell that to anyone trying to navigate the gridlock on Abbot Kinney, Broadway, Westminster and Electric as cars, taxis, trash trucks and delivery vehicles cue up to service the hotel and deposit its guests.

Folks, it didn't have to be this way. This could have been a win-win for the community and for Dan Abrams. But almost from the beginning,  Abrams and his development partners have not been an honest partner in this process. They're certainly not being honest now as they try to railroad this project through while people are distracted by the holidays.

Don't let them. Please take the time to write email, come to the meeting, and inform your neighbors.

For reference, here are links to the developers plans:

http://cityhood.org/Attachments/_3Y60KHPGK.pdf
http://cityhood.org/Attachments/_3Y60KWXL7.pdf
http://cityhood.org/Attachments/_3Y60KZ4SR.pdf

UPDATE: News About The Abbot Kinney Hotel, None Of It Good

Latest hotel renderings as they appear on the developer's website

Folks, I hate to bother you so close to the holidays, but I've been hearing some disturbing news about the massive block-long hotel complex being proposed for Abbot Kinney Blvd. and none of it is good.

To review, after being turned away by the community in October and forced to remove the fourth floor, developer Dan Abrams' project was literally sent back to the drawing board. He would have to create new plans and submit them to the community to review before he could proceed further.

We've waited two months for those new plans. But instead of coming to the community and presenting them in a transparent and open manner where they can be reviewed and discussed by everyone at the same time in a public forum, it seems Abrams and his development team is withholding information and engaging in a PR campaign of private meetings and carefully parsed talking points.

Yesterday morning I learned the developer had submitted a draft of the revised project to Venice Land Use and Planning Committee member John Reed a week ago, yet those plans have yet to appear on LUPC's website or on the developer's own website http://www.abbotkinneyhotel.com/.

Then later in the day I started receiving emails from Abrams' supporters, who had evidently been provided a list of talking points to share during a private presentation given to them earlier in the week (more on those talking points in a minute). According to the email, supporters were told at that meeting the project would be fast-tracked through LUPC next Wednesday, December 18th - only a week before Christmas. Yet no agenda

Proposed site of the Abrams hotel

has been set so far for next week's LUPC meeting.

What do the developers know that the community doesn't?

My concern is that the only thing that Abrams and his development team learned from encountering the community's opposition in October was how to avoid as much of the community as possible in the future. I can find no other explanation for this kind of behavior.

If Dan Abrams and his investors have truly created a project "conceived, grown, and curated by people living in, connected to, and caring for the unique community of Venice" as their website claims then there's no need for the secrecy and obfuscation. It's that simple.

But instead, we're left with new plans only some supporters have seen, a crucial planning meeting that may or may not happen next week and a set of highly misleading talking points.

Here is what we do know:

• As far as we can tell based on the limited information we have (and the artist renderings on the developer's own website), the only thing that's substantially changed with the hotel is that they've lopped off the 4th floor. But we knew that two months ago.  

• The hotel complex still takes up the entire block between Broadway and Westminster, with a partial carve-out for two parcels the developers don't own. There's nothing else on Abbot Kinney that even comes close to it in terms of mass and scale. 

• The hotel complex will still have close to the 92 rooms originally proposed. Abrams has tried to obfuscate this point by claiming "Phase 1" would only be 70 rooms and "Phase 2" would be 18 rooms, but in fact this was always the plan, regardless of the height of the development. When I met with Abrams earlier this year, he told me he could not make the hotel pencil out at anything less than 80 rooms. And when I talked with him before the October LUPC meeting he told me he would try to restore as many of the hotel rooms from the lost 4th floor as possible.

• The hotel complex would still cause major parking and traffic headaches for the surrounding neighborhoods. The developers are claiming traffic for the hotel would be much less at "peak hours" than an alternative office/retail project, yet a 2007 DOT report estimated a 57-room hotel proposed for Abbot Kinney would generate 757 net new car trips a day.  Abrams' hotel as proposed would be nearly twice the size and would, presumably, generate nearly twice the traffic.  Expect permanent gridlock on Abbot Kinney, Broadway, Westminster and Electric as cars, taxis, trash trucks and delivery vehicles cue up to service the hotel and deposit its guests.

• The developers also claim their parking "allows employees to park for free." Well, they could also "allow Martians to land and claim our women" but that doesn't mean it's going to actually happen. It's an empty promise, with the burden of enforcement on us (if it can be enforced), not the developer. Good luck with that as you circle the block endlessly looking for any street parking not already taken up by hotel patrons and employees looking for the free parking that already exists in front of your home. 

So now what?  

The Venice Land Use and Planning Committee is not legally required to post an agenda for the December 18th meeting until Sunday, December 15th. So all I can tell you for now is to please keep next Wednesday night open in case we need you to show up.  

As soon as we know more I promise to send you information on the hotel's new plans, who you need to write emails to if needed, and if we need you to come out next week.

So please stay tuned for further news!