In Los Angeles, jobs, open space, and "new opportunities" part of pitch for Millennium Hollywood; journalist sees project as "an outgrowth of a perfect civic compost"
From a 3/28/13 Los Angeles Times op-ed essay, A real Hollywood flop: The Millennium Hollywood project is just what the city doesn't need , by former reporter Laurie Becklund: On Thursday, the city's planning commission is likely to consider a development proposal that will affect the lives of everyone who lives in Hollywood or passes through it on the Hollywood Freeway, one of the most congested in the nation. The 1.1-million-square-foot development, Millennium Hollywood, would be twice the size of the Los Angeles Convention Center and allow a tower nearly 600 feet high, vastly out of proportion with today's Hollywood. Its boosters say it would provide jobs, stimulate business, lure thousands of new tourists and "reinvigorate" Hollywood. The developers, a New York hedge fund and an owner of the land under Grand Central Station, are asking for an unprecedented 22-year contract to build out the sites just north of Hollywood and Vine. Indeed, the planning commissi...