CALABASAS : City Asked to Delay Vote on Park Centre

The developer of a proposed office and retail center has asked the City Council to postpone a vote scheduled for Wednesday on the controversial plan.

Kilroy Industries needs more time to find an operator for an eight-screen movie theater that would be part of the project, said Mark Ossola, the firm’s vice president.

“We have two more meetings set up with theater operators,” he said Monday. “Hopefully, we can get this back on track within the next two weeks.”

The firm wants to build a 1.5-million-square-foot office and retail center known as Calabasas Park Centre, at the corner of Calabasas Road and Parkway Calabasas.

Critics say the project would be too large for Calabasas. Many are especially opposed to a 2,800-seat movie theater, saying it would bring crime and tie up traffic.

A committee made up of officials from Kilroy Industries and city representatives has been meeting in an attempt to work out a compromise. The committee was established after an August City Council meeting, during which all five council members told the developer that they would reject the project unless it was scaled down.

Ossola said Monday that his firm tried and failed to find nationally known operators that would be willing to manage a theater with less than 2,000 seats.

“We have been turned down by three operators,” he said. “We have to be careful. We don’t want to end up with an entitlement that we cannot find tenants for.”

Marvin Lopata, who represents the City Council on the committee, said city officials, at their last meeting with Kilroy officials, “asked them to go back and negotiate with a smaller theater group that could be interested in a deal.”

“It’s been an amicable situation,” Lopata said. “I think that they are working hard to come up with a good project that will be accepted by the council.”

Ted Rosenquist, a member of an opponents’ group, the Save Our City Committee, said even a 2,000-seat theater is “clearly unacceptable.”

He said his group would prefer a project that would blend in with Old Town Calabasas, a section of Western-style shops and restaurants on Calabasas Road.

But Ossola said he believes Kilroy Industries has significant support in the community for its project.

“The Friends of Calabasas Park Centre is a group of over 550 members, and we feel this far exceeds any opponents’ groups,” he said. “It’s also supported by nine out of 10 merchants in the area--including merchants in Old Town.”