new hotel-conference center

As noted in a prior blog post, the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center is available and a public hearing will be held on June 5, 7 pm, at the UCLA Faculty Center.  If you tried to download the report from the official site, you may have found downloading around 700 pages slow and difficult.  So below, the report is divided into seven parts for easier access.  It will also be preserved in an alternative site. Not exactly bedtime reading but… Part 1 Open publication – Free publishing– More ucla Part 2 Open publication – Free…

Above is the “Radisson at USC” which has 240 rooms.  It is right across from the USC campus on Figueroa.  It isn’t shy about calling itself a “hotel,” even though it has ten fewer rooms than the proposed facility at UCLA which the administration insists is not really a hotel but rather a “residential conference center” and sometimes just a “conference center.”  And yes, the Radisson at USC has conference rooms including a 7,000 square foot ballroom. Do we really need to pretend about what UCLA’s proposed facility is? There is a saying about such pretense… UPDATE: There will be…

Various web sources are available concerning interpretation of the California Public Records Act.  It’s worth noting what that Act requires in view of the history of the hotel/conference center and UCLA’s non-disclosure, i.e., stonewalling, of the business plan for the revised version of the hotel. The revised hotel “concept” was unveiled in early November 2011.  At that point, there were repeated requests for the underlying business plan and related documents by the Faculty Association and other groups.  Under the Act, a state agency has 10 days to respond and possibly another 14 days to produce the requested documents.  Certain exemptions…

Yours truly made a PowerPoint presentation earlier today (May 2, 2012) to the UCLA Emeriti Board concerning the proposed UCLA hotel/conference center project.  It runs about 43 minutes.  You can see the slides and hear the audio of the complete presentation at: Because the above link may be slow to load and play, here are alternatives with the presentation divided into three parts that may work faster: Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: The full 43-minute presentation can be downloaded in various formats at http://archive.org/details/PresentationOfDanielJ.b.MitchellOnUclaHotelconferenceCenterProjectTo

Westwood in the past seemed a more prosperous place than at present.  Above we see Bullocks-Westwood Department Store in the early 1950s (based on the cars depicted) and an ad featuring Bullocks-Westwood in the 1930s.  (The store was rebuilt between the two photos.)  Below we see the same location, now home of a Ralphs supermarket and a Best Buy.  There used to be a drug store also at that location but it closed.  Now it has been announced that the Best Buy will also close. If you walk up Westwood Boulevard from Wilshire towards UCLA, what is notable is the…

In previous posts, we have reported on some proposed Santa Monica hotel projects and their size, to give you an idea as to how big the 250-room hotel/conference center proposed by UCLA really is.  But rather than focus on proposed hotels, here are some statistics on actual hotels in the area that were reported as part of a proposal to remodel the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.Santa Monica   Miramar Hotel………….296 rooms   Casa Del Mar…………..129 rooms   Shutters on the Beach…..198 roomsBeverly Hills   Beverly Hills Hotel…….210 rooms   Beverly Wilshire……….395 rooms   Montage……………….201 rooms   Peninsula Hotel………..193 roomsLos Angeles   Four Seasons LA………..285 rooms   Hotel Bel…