The Panorama City Neighborhood Council Thursday night will discuss the status of developer The Icon Co.’s long-delayed redevelopment of a former Montgomery Ward department store, the council’s meeting agenda shows.
Designed to include more than 600 units and 60,000 square feet of commercial space, the project has been delayed by litigation since 2018, the year it received city approvals after several rounds of redesigns that included an additional 200 or so apartments.
The following year, a judge ruled in favor of two construction worker unions that had filed a lawsuit saying the project’s original environmental review didn’t sufficiently study the effects of its new size. Earlier in 2019, The Icon Co. filed a lawsuit against the two unions accusing them of racketeering and extortion.
If it finally moves forward with environmental clearance, the project would contain 623 units and 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurants following the demolition of three vacant buildings at the site of the former department store, which closed in 2001. Plans call for those mixed-use buildings to stand six and seven stories tall and be adjacent to a 17,000-square-foot plaza.
