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News reports say the Hollywood sign is endangered by that big land auction surrounding it. And I'm calling on this town's movie and TV moguls to do something about it. Fox River Financial Resources, the Chicago investment group that owns the 138 sage-covered acres on Cahuenga Peak above and to the left of the "H" of the Hollywood sign, put the land up for sale for $22 million last month after quietly purchasing the parcel from Howard Hughes' estate for $1.7 million in 2002. Since Hughes secured the right to build a hillside road on land owned by the city Department of Water and Power, the hill could become home to new residential construction which would ruin the bucolic setting of the sign. Councilman Tom LaBonge told the AP that he wants the city, which owns the ground that the sign stands on plus the land on three sides of it, to acquire the property. But the city cannot legally pay more than $6 million. So the councilman is hoping for a replay of the last time the Hollywood sign was in trouble -- when a bunch of celebrities paid $28,000 each to replace the sign's nine crumbling letters back in the 1970s. This time, I think the Hollywood CEOs should band together (hell, they collude on everything else) and save the single most recognizable promotional landmark for their industry.
The Moguls Need To Save Hollywood Sign
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I agree with you that Hollywood moguls should buy that land, but who says it’s worth $22 million? Just because that’s the asking price doesn’t mean anyone has to pay it. I think the landowners were hoping for please from people and posts like yours to be used as a free sales tool.
This is outrageous.
Does no one in L.A. have a soul?
These land developers have turned the city into one giant strip mall and condo hell.
If you destroy every last landmark and historic symbol, the city will lose its identity and its attraction to both residents and tourists alike.
Where is the L.A. Conservancy, or whatever org. oversees landmark preservation?
Is the city selling its soul for a few quick bucks in a budget crisis?
Why didn’t the city just buy it back in ‘02?
if the studios buy the land and sign, they’ll turn it into a billboard. you’ll look up one day and it’ll say csi: miami instead of hollywood.
and the studios can rotate by week or month who gets to use it.
Eric,
This is the Chicago Way: Either payup or get used to seeing residential/commercial units next to the sign. If you Angelenos didn’t want this potential eyesore you shoulda bought the land a long time ago.
I hear the Hollywood sign was seen walking out of Endeavor yesterday . . .
Maybe the moguls should buy the sign and move it to Toronto or Vancouver since that’s where they film movies and Tv these days.
Today, “Hollywood” is a myth and a sign won’t save it.
PS: the city can always claim “eminent domain” and just take the property–it’s been done before.
22 million? Try 3 mil take it or leave it.
“Does no one in L.A. have a soul?
These land developers have turned the city into one giant strip mall and condo hell. If you destroy every last landmark and historic symbol, the city will lose its identity and its attraction to both residents and tourists alike.”
Sorry. Just have to laugh seeing as how the sign was to be a temporary and cheesy advertisement for a fancy new housing development. Which is ironically what they want to place right next to it.
Yes, this has been really distressing to me. PLEASE keep up regular posts about this issue. Otherwise, things just kind of die away and soon we’ll all be looking at gigantic MC-mansions up there. It would be awful.
They had that “Cool World” Cartoon woman sitting on the Hollywood sign back when that movie came out. Studios not need to own the sign to use it to schill.
I always love the runaway production comments. You know, since it’s a business one has to assume that if a movie is shot somewhere outside L.A., there has to be a financial reason for that choice. Now when looking at the financial reason, you have to get your head around that it is cheaper to fly every man, woman, and child, first-class, to a foreign country, and pay for their first-class hotels, per diems, etc, then it is to shoot here. I mean – holy cow. What is going on that THAT could be cheaper? The answer is SAG, IATSE, and lack of L.A. tax incentives – not the producers.
As much as I’d like to see millions of dollars from movie moguls put towards preserving the undeveloped hills next to the Hollywood sign, don’t you think there’s a better use for this money?
As to runaway productions, with the CDN dollar up to par now, it’s not as attractive to go up to Canada. However, a place like Manitoba does give a 45% tax rebate on labor. That’s a lot of money back. Toronto, however, is not considered cheap anymore.
LA is just too damn expensive for crew costs, set construction and overall production needs.
With real estate in the toilet, $22m sounds like an awfully optimistic floor for bids. Have the Fox Rover number-crunchers seen the latest reports on Southland residential prices?!
Nikki, you are absolutely right on one thing: the promotional value of the sign (and the uncluttered surrounding land) far exceeds its current market value.
How many of the tourists who also visit Disneyland or Universal Studios are certain to be photographed with the sign in the background each year?
It must remain. Or we’ll all be subjected to Donald “I’m-worth-a-tenth-of-what-my-father-willed-me” Trump creating a “bigger, more glamorous, more beautiful” Hollywood sign in the Valley.
I’m normally completely opposed to public takings, but in this case, there’s a really strong argument to simply take the land and compensate the owners at the market rate, not their jumped-up price of $22 mil. Who do they take the people of LA for?
First, the City didn’t buy the land years ago – private indidivuals paid to restore the sign. Second, the threat to build houses is simply… blackmail… and there are a number of things that need to be evaluated before any course of action can be determined.
Granted there is now legal access, but is there fire truck access (which is a seperate issue) to the building sites that would disturb the view of the sign? And are those sites geologically stable? And will the slope density formula make those sites too steep to get a proper sized house? Or will enough variances of any kind be needed to build on the sensitive parts of the property – as opposed to other building sites? If so, then the city could deny those variances if there are other buildable parts of the lots.
Lastly – would the planting of trees at the top of the city’s site be able to block the sight of – and the view of – the building sites?
I rather doubt the last condition – but the answer to the problem might be found in the first conditions.
“With real estate in the toilet, $22m sounds like an awfully optimistic floor for bids. Have the Fox Rover number-crunchers seen the latest reports on Southland residential prices?!”
That (potential) land is more or less immune to the real estate market. It would essentially be the NEW most desirable place to live for fabulously rich idiots, a bubble that never bursts – rather just moves on from generation to generation.
What with the salaries the Big Names get for films these days, why not ask them to drop a couple million here, a couple million there? I mean, when you are asking $20 million per film, it wouldn’t take too many people to close the deal.
Lacking that, send the cast of The Sopranos around some dark and stormy night for a little chat. You know, come to an understanding of sorts. Where I live is the home of several Mafia family dons; I can arrange things.
@PS: the city can always claim “eminent domain” and just take the property–it’s been done before.
Comment by J.J. — April 17, 2008 @ 3:25 pm
As someone familiar with the people involved in the investment group and someone who grew up in Chicago for nearly 30 years, I can tell you that the second they tried that, they would make it a Federal case and it will get moved to Chicago. Care to guess who will win the court case?
The city KNEW the land was available. They had every chance to buy it and ignored it and are now crying foul. Too little, too late. They can take $6 million and but as much as possible around it as they want. It’s not like it matters. LA is a soulless town anyway. Sign or no sign.
Forget buying the land, let the greedy glorious bas-terds make their threats to “build homes” and simply move the sign to the hills of Desert Hot Springs, California. Create a new home base in, around, and above the Vortex. The energies are perfect – Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and added Moving Images. I think the city would welcome the industry, and if no one bites, we can make our own sign for the hills to promote our real estate saying HOTLAND, seen for miles around. And through the whir of our natural healing winds, fresh air, and award winning natural spring waters, we would then start to draw many a yet to be discovered independent movie mogul, vacationer, and hot springer, from everywhere around the world, to visit 1 very cool desert wonderland.