Supermarket Sues L.A. to Stop Multifamily Redo of Hotel

The owners of the upscale supermarket chain Erewhon have filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles aiming to stop the demolition of the defunct Sportsmen’s Lodge hotel in Studio City.

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court, aims to overturn the City Council’s approval of Midwood Investment & Development’s plans to knock down the aging hotel, which opened in 1962 and closed during the pandemic, and replace it with a multifamily campus, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Erewhon operates a store that anchors the Shops at Sportsman’s Lodge, an outdoor mall including restaurants and an Equinox gym that Midwood built in 2021 next door to the hotel, which is located at Ventura Boulevard and Coldwater Canyon Avenue.

The lawsuit alleges that the city failed to comply with the California Environment Quality Act (CEQA) in its approval of Midwood’s plan to build the Residences at Sportsman’s Lodge, a mixed-use development that will have 520 apartments, including 78 units of affordable housing, and ground floor stores and restaurants connecting it to the Shops at Sportsman’s Lodge.

The lawsuit claims the city violated CEQA by forgoing an Environmental Impact Report in favor of a less rigorous assessment, the report said.

Prior to filing the lawsuit, Erewhon joined with the Studio City Residents Association and Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers, in appealing the city’s approval of the project. Last month, the City Council voted 13 to 1 to deny the appeal.

Before the CEQA complaint, opponents have argued that the hotel—one of the first to unionize in the San Fernando Valley—should be preserved as an historic site. They also expressed concern about the project’s 97-foot height.

CEQA is California’s signature environmental law, enacted in 1970 a few months after the first Earth Day. Initially intended as a tool for residents to oppose freeway expansions, the California Supreme Court broadened the law in 1972 to apply it to almost every building project in the state.

As California’s housing crisis has intensified, state officials have been pushing back against CEQA lawsuits aimed at blocking housing development.

In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an order narrowing the window for legal challenges to a $2B mixed-use project in Downtown Los Angeles.

The 7.6-acre project known as Fourth & Central plans to build 1,500 residential units, 410K SF of offices and a 69-room hotel at the intersection of Fourth Street and Central Avenue in L.A.’s Skid Row next to the Arts District.

Newsom’s order doesn’t negate the requirement for a CEQA review, but it would shorten the amount of time for a judicial decision in any lawsuit filed to challenge the CEQA impact assessment.

Newsom’s action aims to have litigation involving a legal challenge based on CEQA—which can take up to five years to resolve—decided within nine months, the Los Angeles Times reported.