Earth shaking news: Hollywood Center megaproject on active fault line

There is a good chance that more than one active earthquake fault runs underneath Millennium Partners’ Hollywood Center megadevelopment site.

That’s according to a new report from state geologists, a finding that runs counter the developer’s long-standing contention that the site is safe, according to the Los Angeles Times. The $1 billion Hollywood Center project will include 1,000 residential units, 35- and 46-story towers, along with two 11-story buildings.

The existence of one or more earthquake faults under the site has been a matter of some debate since 2014. Now, the California Geological Survey said in a letter to the city of Los Angeles that studies “strongly support the presence of an active…fault strand entering the eastern Hollywood Center property,” according to the Times reported.

The letter added that more than one “fault trace of the Hollywood Fault crosses the proposed project site,” and that a recent U.S. Geological Survey report found a new section of the Hollywood Fault that could extend under the development.

Millennium Partners’ co-founder Philip Aarons said the data the state used was “significantly inferior in quality to the data acquired from the extensive trenching done on our site.”

He countered that a report prepared to assess the project’s potential environmental impact, which was published earlier this year, concluded that “no earthquake faults on the property have moved since the last Ice Age and so the site is safe under state and city requirements,” the Times reported.

In 2013, L.A. approved what Aarons firm at the time had named Millennium Hollywood. But the project has been tied up in environmental lawsuits and other reviews since. In 2018, it got a redesign that included eliminating plans for 100,000 square feet of commercial space and a gym. [LAT] — Dennis Lynch