Cal-bred News

Decision on Hollywood Park Thursday

By OCRegister.com
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (May 23, 2009) -- The Inglewood City Council is expected Thursday night to approve plans for the future development of Hollywood Park, which include razing the historic 238-acre track.

The City Council meeting is the final hurdle to the Bay Meadows Land Company’s $2 billion project, called "Hollywood Park Tomorrow," which was unanimously approved by the Inglewood Planning Commission on May 16.

"It will take about a year to put all he plans in place," said Gerard McCallum, a spokesman for the project, "and 10 years to complete everything. We have told he California Horse Racing Board that we will give six months notice before the track closes."

The massive mixed-use project includes a final environmental impact report, zoning code changes, a general plan amendment and other public-use entitlements.

The Bay Meadows Land Company, of San Mateo, which bought the track from Churchill Downs for $260 million in 2005, already has razed the property on which Bay Meadows Race Course in San Mateo sat. But it has indefinitely postponed plans to redevelop that property.

Golden Gate Fields in Albany, near Berkeley, the only remaining major track in northern California, says that track should be sold by August or September and that racing will continue at the site for the foreseeable future.

This isn’t the case for Hollywood Park, which opened its doors on June 10, 1938 and for most of its seven decades has been known as "The Track of the Stars."

Plans for its future development include 620,000 square feet of retail space (shops, restaurants and a giant movie theatre complex), 75,000 square feet of office space, a 300-room hotel and convention center, about 3,000 residences, 25 acres of park or open space and a rebuilt casino and gambling facility that will replace the $20 million one that opened in 1994 adjacent to the racetrack.

Diane Becker, a Long Beach resident who owns several horses, is leading a group called "Save Hollywood Park" that is attempting to keep the track open. She was heckled by members of the gallery at the planning committee meeting at which the redevelopment plans were approved.

"I don’t they liked hearing that no one will come to Inglewood just for some shopping," Becker said.

"Hey, the truth hurts sometimes. The developer will promise them anything. This is such a bad idea, especially economically. I think they must imagine money just falls from the skies into Inglewood when the developer comes to town."
Larry Bortstein