ALERT - On Friday, June 28, the about to be reconstituted City Council is considering a 25 year, $60 million ($25 million present value) subsidy for the Village at Westfield Topanga, a $300 million, 630,000 square foot development in Woodland Hills.
But is this giveaway necessary?
The Westfield Group is hardly a charity case. It is the largest owner of shopping centers in the world. It has $64 billion of assets under management. Its 100 shopping malls that generate over $40 billion in retail sales for its 22,000 retail tenants. The Company has a market value and a net worth of more than $20 billion.
A report commissioned by the Chief Legislative Officer makes the case for this subsidy.
However, this report and the proposed gift to this behemoth have not been reviewed or analyzed by any committee of the City Council, including the Budget and Finance Committee or the Planning and Land Use Management Committee.
Nor have the local Neighborhood Councils or Homeowners Associations have had time to even read the dense 68 page report prepared by the CLA that was filed on late Friday night.
Furthermore, this MAI (Made as Indicated) report appears to be flawed in that the projections appear to be low balled and the valuation multiples underestimate the market value.
Furthermore, the synergistic benefits associated with Westfield’s existing Topanga mall have not been adequately considered.
Rather than engaging in an open and transparent process, the Herb Wesson led City Council is trying to jam this deal through in the last days of the current council’s reign, allowing the newly constituted council to shift the blame to the departing members, including Dennis Zine.
Of course, any analysis of this situation would not be complete without an analysis of Westfield and its relationship to City Hall.
As it turns out, Westfield is the owner of the Century City and Topanga malls that have a total of 2.5 million square feet of retail space generating retail sales over $500 million.
They are also have the concessions at LAX for the Bradley Terminal, the Theme Building, and Terminals 1, 2, 3 and 6.
Now is this a honey pot for City Hall?
City Hall and the Mayor need to stop this process and give us time to review and analyze this deal to make sure that it is legitimate use of City funds.
Quite frankly, why does our cash strapped City need to fund a $60 billion developer when we cannot afford to fix our streets and sidewalks?
If you can make the time, visit City Hall on Friday morning and tell them HELL NO. And if you cannot afford the time, as is the case with most of us, contact your Council Member and tell them HELL NO.
Note: A shout out to David Zahniser and Dan Weikel of The Los Angeles Times for exposing this proposed giveaway in their Tuesday article, “Mall developer Westfield in line for city financial assistance.”
(Jack Humphreville writes LA Watchdog for CityWatch. He is the President of the DWP Advocacy Committee, the Ratepayer Advocate for the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, and a Neighborhood Council Budget Advocate. Humphreville is the publisher of the Recycler Classifieds -- www.recycler.com. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Hear Jack every Tuesday morning at 6:20 on McIntyre in the Morning, KABC Radio 790.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 11 Issue 52
Pub: June 28, 2013