Report: J.H. Snyder Gives Up on Laurel Plaza Redevelopment

Back in 2009, developer J.H. Snyder and the Community Redevelopment Agency announced plans for a $333-million renovation of the Laurel Plaza and Valley Plaza shopping malls in North Hollywood, which were once among the premier malls in the country, but are today decaying eyesores described by Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian as "an economic black hole."

Recent talk by J.H. Snyder of converting the area into sound stages has now reportedly come to an end. The website Curbed LA says J.H. Snyder has handed the 23-acre Valley Plaza property, of which it owned 77 percent, back to commercial lender iStar. Curbed LA cited multiple unnamed sources.

Patch reported on the .

During the 1960s and '70s, the Valley and Laurel plazas were considered among the finest and busiest malls in America. John F. Kennedy gave a stump speech in the Sears parking lot in 1960 and he and Jackie rode down Laurel Canyon Boulevard in a motorcade. Valley Plaza was one of the first outdoor malls built in America and also one of the first built in the suburbs.

But that all changed after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which caused severe structural damage to the buildings. In the aftermath, many of the shops and the skating rink were torn down and many other stores were simply boarded up and abandoned. Major renovation plans were announced in 1999, 2003 and several other times, but nothing ever came to pass.

"Everything's boarded up, and it's been a long time. There was the anticipation of there's something new and big and grand coming and everybody was pretty excited about that, but that anticipation has been going on for a long time," said , North Hollywood-Toluca Lake Patch's real estate columnist, who grew up in the East San Fernando Valley. "And now it's a little depressing. It seems like a huge waste of space."

The North Hollywood community and city leaders had high hopes in 2009, when glossy photos of a new mall, along with plans for a major renovation, were announced. The cornerstone of the new plan was a complete redevelopment of Valley Plaza, which was to include a new Macy's, a new Target and a new multiplex movie theater. The old Macy's at Laurel Plaza would be moved and replaced with apartments and townhouses. Macy's owns the Laurel Plaza site.

"At this point we have put the project on hold. It is a sign of the economic times," Kacy Keys, vice president and general council for the J.H. Snyder Co., told Patch in November, announcing that the plan was on hold. "A huge retail project of this type could not go forward for two reasons: no retailers willing to take a risk, and no lenders to finance it. We hope to do something in the future, but it is unclear exactly what will be done."

North Hollywood-Toluca Lake Patch is in the process of producing a multipart video series on the history and current condition of Valley and Laurel plazas. An interview for the series with Goodman was recently shot on a sunny Sunday afternoon at Macy's, where there were an estimated 100 cars in the parking lot out of the 3,500 spaces available. Goodman guessed the last time he saw the parking lot full was back in the 1970s during the holiday season.

"There's a huge amount of space here, with no tenants, no landowners occupying the space with no one to fight for it, surrounded by a residential district, and those people ... can go to any one of the [shopping] centers around here, but I think they would love to come here," said Goodman. "There's a lot of things that would work. Maybe we'll find that something good will happen."

Click on the attached video to see a clip of Goodman talking about the plazas in their glory days in an excerpt from the upcoming video series.

Jo Carlino Cubello contributed to this report.