Development Foes File Suit to Block El Segundo Project

0

Development Foes File Suit to Block El Segundo Project

LAW

by Amanda Bronstad

Bringing months of bickering to a head, a group calling itself Citizens Against Gridlock in El Segundo filed suit to bring a halt to the largest proposed development in the city in a decade.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, follows months of public campaigning to stop development of the El Segundo Corporate Campus project, a 2.2 million square foot mixed-use development.

The litigation is being bankrolled by Kilroy Realty Corp., whose headquarters is across the street from the site of the proposed project, being developed by Thomas Properties.

The suit asks a judge to overturn the City Council’s approval of the project. “The citizenry is upset enough to want to go to a judge for relief about the procedures that were used and the inadequacy of the environmental analysis,” said Nelson Brestoff, partner at Moskowitz Brestoff Winston & Blinderman LLP who filed the suit.

But Thomas Properties’ attorney, Dale Goldsmith of Greenberg Glusker Field Claman Machtinger & Kinsella LLP, said the issue is really about the potential threat the project’s 1.8 million square feet of office space could have on Kilroy, which has tenants like Boeing Co.

“This has nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with Boeing,” Glusker said. “It’s the anti-competitive wolf donning sheep’s clothing as a concerned citizen.”

Smash Hit

A music company that had the exclusive artist rights to R & B; group Destiny’s Child released its latest smash hit this time, against its lawyers, Beverly Hills entertainment firm Bloom Hergott Diemer & Cook LLP.

Grass Roots Entertainment Group Inc., which hired the firm in 1993, sued Bloom Hergott on Feb. 27 for $15 million, in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming malpractice and breach of agreement.

Executives at Bloom Hergott declined to comment.

According to the suit, Grass Roots and its chief executive, Dwayne Wiggins, signed an exclusive recording agreement with Destiny’s Child in 1995. They signed a second agreement the next year with Sony Corp. to allow Sony to make recordings while Grass Roots took a percentage of royalties.

Destiny’s Child claimed the original agreement didn’t apply since they were minors when the deal was signed and had the contract voided. Because they were minors, Bloom Hergott was supposed to get additional court approvals but failed to do so, the suit said.

In-Flight Advice

Encino attorney Stepan Baghdassarian will be featured on a regular radio program broadcast on all American Airlines flights this month on Sky Radio Network. “The focus of the whole program is to point out various business issues that business travelers have,” Baghdassarian said. “Particularly in hiring of foreign employees or foreign businesses opening up subsidiaries or divisions here.”

Staff reporter Amanda Bronstad can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 225, or at

[email protected].

No posts to display