Work is set to start on the (huge! delayed! controversial!) Village at Westfield Topanga project this weekend, with a groundbreaking ceremony for a new 8,000-square-foot community center. When we last checked in on the project in January, Westfield didn't yet have building permits, and there was a lawsuit pending from the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, so we were surprised to hear work was getting under way so soon. But that's not the only surprising (freaking weird) news, according to the Daily News:
-- Despite planning to break ground in five days, plans for the community center, which will have a kitchen so that it can host catered events, have not been completed.
-- Westfield does not expect to submit the plans to the city for another 30 to 45 days.
-- This community center does not appear to be the community center from the original plan. Westfield says "the Village will [also] have another 6,000 square feet of 'event and community gathering space.'"
-- That "event and community gathering space" may be put on the roof of a parking structure (or it could be on a ground-level plaza or somewhere else).
-- The about-to-be-built community center is actually located across the street from the Village site.
-- In an old Sizzler.
When complete, the $450 million Village is set to consist of a Costco and about *100 other shops, a hotel, a 12-story office tower and a now-unknown number of community centers.
· Westfield to build community center at old Sizzler site [DN]
· Village at Westfield Topanga Archives [Curbed LA]
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