There are plans to remodel the, old fashioned Sportsmen’s Lodge event center in Studio City and to build a $60-million, upscale Sportsmen’s Landing shopping center (to include restaurants, retail, and an Equinox gym) was approved by the South Valley Area Planning Commission, says the LA Business Journal. Of course like most large improvements and urbanization many locals are miffed and there were nine appeals to the project, and is also opposed by the holding company that owns and has owned the adjacent Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel for decades (Weintraub just leases it). Now that the Landing’s approved, the holding company’s said they’re going to try to stop it from getting built.
A lawyer for the Ventura Boulevard Association spoke at the hearing where the project was approved. He spoke against the project, which he said failed to provide adequate parking for all the people who would flood the site. The concern was that once the Landing’s 440 parking spots filled up, overflow would eat up parking at the hotel.
Weintraub bought the four acres of real estate that encircle the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel in 2007. (Previous reports said he paid $51 million; the Los Angeles Business Journel says it was more like $29 million.) Weintraub doesn’t own the hotel, but he does have a very long-term lease on it; he got the lease in 2008 and it’s not supposed to run out until 2062. However, that might be cut short.
The Ventura Boulevard Association LLC (which represents the New York family which has owned the hotel since the 1960s) is currently suing Weintraub because they claim he didn’t have the correct permits or approvals to do that recent $8-million makeover on the newly retro-cool Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel. They’re suing to end Weintraub’s lease on the hotel.
It’s not clear how all this drama will play out or how the lawsuit will be resolved. Weintraub is hoping to get started on Sportsmen’s Landing by year end 2015.