What’s happening with Studio City’s iconic Sportsmen’s Lodge?

For years, a developer has been planning to tear down part of Studio City’s iconic Sportsmen’s Lodge complex and redevelop it into a high-end retail center.

But two years after the Los Angeles City Council signed off on the project, it appears to be stalled.

Opened in the late 1930s, when it was just a “roadside fishing attraction, the Sportsmen’s Lodge has, over the years, bloomed into an events center, with a hotel and restaurants. In the Valley’s post-war days, politicians and celebrities visited the complex, and it has hosted decades of civic functions, bar mitzvahs, and weddings.

In 2015, over the objections of some neighbors and preservationists, the City Council approved the redevelopment plan. Opponents have said the new project would disrupt the neighborhood, provide insufficient parking, and destroy the events center—a fixture of the Valley for decades, the Los Angeles Conservancy wrote.

Los Angeles Public Library photo collection

In early 2015, developer Richard Weintraub told the San Fernando Valley Business Journal that he wanted to start construction by the end of 2015. But work on the site has yet to begin.

There has been no movement on the site and no announcement from developer Richard Weintraub on a start date. A representative for the developer would not speak on the record about the project.

So, for now, the Sportsmen’s Lodge is still open for business.

The redevelopment would demolish the existing Sportsmen’s Lodge event facility and create a new 98,000-square-foot retail center. (The hotel would remain onsite and be adjacent to the new development.)

Spread across five new one- and two-story buildings on the site, the new open-air Sportsmen’s Landing would including about 24,000 square feet of restaurant space, a 30,000-square-foot gym (shown as an Equinox in early promotional materials), and roughly 37,500 square feet of retail.

Via Department of City Planning

Via Department of City Planning

The new Sportmen’s Landing would also include 446 parking spaces—a sticking point for many locals who opposed the project and for the owners of the Sportsmen’s Lodge hotel, who feared that the shopping center’s overflow would cut into parking at the hotel.

• Sportsmen's Lodge in Studio City to Be Redeveloped Into a Fancy Shopping Center [Curbed LA]
• Huge, Fancy Sportsmen's Lodge Redevelopment Defeats Neighbor Complaints [Curbed LA]