Los Angeles Officials Declare Valley Plaza a Public Nuisance

The long-blighted Valley Plaza complex in North Hollywood is finally set to come down.

On Tuesday, Los Angeles city commissioners voted to declare part of the once-thriving shopping center a public nuisance, the Los Angeles Times reported. The officials are clearing the way for the demolition of six buildings in the San Fernando Valley complex.

The neglected buildings and empty parking lots have been an issue for local officials and residents as squatters move in and as police and fire departments respond to calls regarding crime, fires and unresponsive individuals, according to the Times.

“These ruined buildings have cast a pall on the entire community, depressing commerce for our small businesses, degrading the quality of life for an entire neighborhood, and creating a real danger for the community,” City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, who represents North Hollywood, said in a statement, per CBS News. “Once this shopping center was a source of pride to our community; now it’s become a blight on the neighborhood and a constant danger to the public.”

Charles Company bought Valley Plaza in 2015 and it has remained vacant ever since, despite city officials expressing interest in developing or selling the site. An interested buyer can still snap up the Valley Plaza property if they’re looking to revive the site.

Nazarian didn’t mince words about the West Hollywood-based property owner’s management of the 17-acre plaza.

“Under the Charles Company, the properties have decayed to what you see standing behind me,” the councilmember said in a news conference outside the property, according to CBS News. “They’ve been vandalized, covered with graffiti, filled with trash, damaged beyond repair.”

An attorney for Charles Company shifted the blame to the city, saying that the firm sought demolition permits and is “ready, willing and able to go forward and demolish these buildings.” The developer purportedly hasn’t been able to initiate demolition because it was awaiting approvals, though a city inspector said the developer hadn’t fully completed the application.

“ For years, the city has asked the Charles Company to develop the site or sell it,” Nazarian told reporters, according to LAist. “They could at least secure it effectively. Instead, they’ve left it to rot and turn into a blight on the entire neighborhood.”

Charles Company, speaking through attorney Fred Gaines, claimed that it’s spent more than $1 million to maintain and secure the buildings but has faced difficulties with upkeep because people repeatedly trespass there. The firm is owned by Mark and Arman Gabaee. In 2022, Arman was sentenced to four years in federal prison in what prosecutors called one of the biggest corruption cases in L.A. history.

Valley Plaza opened in 1951 and became a symbol of American suburbanism and mall culture, eventually becoming what was believed to be the largest shopping center on the West Coast.

It’s been frequented by presidential candidates from John F. Kennedy, who came in its heyday in 1960 when he was running for the White House, to Mitt Romney, who held a news conference in his 2012 campaign in the decrepit complex to highlight Democratic opponents’ supposed economic failings.

Until the buildings are demolished, they’ll likely remain go-to spots for filmmakers looking to create scenes of abandoned, post-apocalyptic towns.

— Chris Malone Méndez