The Valley Plaza was once the pride of the San Fernando Valley in North Hollywood, but the Board of Building and Safety commissioners voted to declare Valley Plaza a nuisance property.
The commissioner's vote opens the door for Valley Plaza to be demolished for redevelopment.
During a morning press conference on Tuesday, L.A. City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian said the center is far from what it used to be when it opened in 1951 as a state-of-the-art shopping center.
“They've been the subject of hundreds of fire and police calls, overdoses, tree fires, structure fires, trespassing, robbery, assaults, just to name a few,” he said. “Just this past May, a billboard caught on fire right over there on Laurel Canyon and was falling onto the street.”
He also said the owners, the Charles Company, have done nothing to revitalize the property.
“For years, the city has asked the Charles Company to develop the site or sell it,” he said. “They could at least secure it effectively. Instead, they've left it to rot and turn into a blight on the entire neighborhood.”
Diane Correll with the Laurel Canyon Neighborhood Association also said the two brothers who own the company have done nothing but profit off the Valley Plaza.
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“They’ve been leasing it out to film productions,” she said. “That movie years ago that was about the L.A. riots and then most recently the Fallout series. It's embarrassing. They have to come over here. They don't need to build a movie set. They just get it set up here, and he's making money off of that.”
Nazarian claimed Charles Company has not wanted to speak until news got out about the Board of Building and Safety commissioners preparing to vote to declare Valley Plaza a nuisance property.
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