Just days after appearing at a Community Council meeting and revealing his plans for a 64 condominium/townhome project on Sunset, the developer cancelled escrow on Monday. ”Palisadian David Hibbert, the project’s architect, told the Palisadian-Post that Bob Bisno, chairman and CEO of TransAction Companies Ltd., decided ‘it was too small a project for the risk involved.’ Hibbert said the Council’s concerns regarding the proposed height of the project was another concern. ”Subsequently, Bisno told the Post Wednesday that although he had cancelled escrow, he had amended and re-submitted his original proposal, requesting a reduction in the $9 million asking price. ‘I should receive word if the sellers will accept our proposal between today and Monday,’ Bisno said. ”Bisno and Hibbert came to the Community Council last Thursday evening to seek input and feedback on their plan to develop the two-acre site located at 17311-17315 Sunset and Los Liones Drive, which has been on the market since last June. The site is currently home to The Outdoor Room and Color Design Art. ”Council members were inquistive, had suggestions and raised some concerns about the project, but were hardly combative. It was clear that while the Council preferred Bisno’s concept of developing the property into residential as opposed to professional/retail, the project would require a height variance, since Pacific Palisades has a height limit of 35 feet, and the proposal called for building heights of 48 and 61 feet. ”’This community has been very strongly opposed to anything over the height limit,’ said Council member Harry Sondheim. Council Chairman Norm Kulla agreed, saying, ‘The height limit is one of the issues that people feel extremely strongly about.’ ”Council member Ted Mackie also questioned the feasibility of allotting only 175 parking spaces for the 64 units. ”’Since there is no street parking anywhere near this project, I suspect that two-and-a-half parking spaces per unit simply would not be adequate due to the affluence in this town,’ Mackie said. ”Bisno insisted the project would not cause a ‘traffic explosion. The development would generate 36 cars per hour at peak traffic times in the morning and a total of about 440 cars per day, which is plus or minus a car or two in peak time [compared to] the traffic that’s there today.’ ”The property, located just two blocks from the ocean and described as ‘a beautiful flat parcel in front with a rear slope,’ is already zoned to allow the development of 62,000 square feet of commercial and/or office space, Bisno said, acknowledging that the primary considerations of development anywhere in the Palisades are landslides, traffic and view corridors. ‘However, we think there are a lot of reasons commercial is not the way to go.’ ”’I definitely think you are heading in the right direction by going away from the commercial development,’ replied Council member David Williams, who also serves as president of the Palisades Chamber of Commerce. Council member Kurt Toppel told Bisno and Hibbert that they could become ‘instant heroes’ if they built a movie theater on the site, while Council member Gilbert Dembo drew a big laugh from the crowd when he suggested a nursery be built on the site. Bisno, who had been working on the development for six months, called for the installation of a stoplight at the intersection of Sunset and Los Liones’an idea agreed upon by an overwhelming majority of Council and audience members. ‘We spoke to the group forming the [New West] school across the street and they’re in favor of a stoplight. I suspect that the majority of the community would be in favor of the stoplight also,’ Bisno said, adding that he planned to include a now-absent sidewalk in his development. Castellammare resident and former Community Council chair Shirley Haggstrom expressed several concerns regarding the proposed development and called for wider setbacks. ‘I’m really encouraging you to be generous with your setbacks and landscaping because traffic routinely gets backed up from the signal at Sunset and PCH, beyond the Castellammare light,’ Haggstrom said. ‘We have to be able to see those vehicles as we go into that blind corner.’ Meanwhile, the property owner is looking at several back-up offers, including interest from an unknown school. Renaissance Academy board president Bill Bryan confirmed to the Post that RA has not approached landowners regarding the purchase of the property. David Eagle, chairman of New West School, which plans to convert the former Santa Ynez Inn buildings into a campus directly across Sunset, confirmed that New West has also shown no interest in buying the land. Stan Gerlach, senior vice president of CB Richard Ellis, would not reveal the name of the school interested in the property; however, he too confirmed that neither RA or New West are currently involved. ‘We’re still marketing the property and have met with at least two other developers and a school,’ said Gerlach, a Palisades resident. ‘We’re continuing to field calls. If Bob [Bisno] doesn’t want to move forward, someone else will. It’s a great piece of property.’ Color Design Art, an interior design and merchandising firm for homes, has occupied part of the site since 1984. Don Anderson, president of CDA, told the Post the business has found a larger space in Culver City to accommodate its growing business and will relocate there between February 1 and March 1. The business will retain its other location in Thousand Oaks. The Outdoor Room, the Palisades’ only full-service nursery, suffered a major blow when owner Sandy Kennedy died last May. An award-winning landscape contractor, she purchased Sawyer Nurseries in 1997 and transformed it into The Outdoor Room. The nursery’s lease runs through July 2007, but could be bought out by a new owner. However, Olivia Arredondo, a senior employee at the nursery, told the Post that the nursery ‘would not want to close,’ even if the property is purchased. Calls to Linda Lack, The Outdoor Room’s owner, were not returned.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
