Topline:
L.A. city officials are considering declaring North Hollywood’s once-iconic Valley Plaza shopping center a public nuisance and having it demolished. The mostly vacant properties have become a hotspot for fires, squatting and other criminal activity over the past decade.
What happened? Valley Plaza shopping center was one of the first open-air shopping centers in the U.S. when it opened in 1951. Business declined in the 1970s, and the center was severely damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. About a decade ago, a company called Five Points, LLC, also known as The Charles Company, acquired the plaza but did not re-open any businesses, sending it into further disrepair.
The Charles Company did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.
Council support: L.A. City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian said he supports a public nuisance declaration for Valley Plaza. He said the shopping center has become an eyesore and a danger to the surrounding neighborhood. “The property owner has refused to take adequate precautions against fire and illegal occupation,” Nazarian wrote in a letter to the Board of Building and Safety Commission last week. “Repeated citations have not persuaded the owner to secure these properties.”…