At the June 2 Century City Chamber of Commerce Citizens of the Year Event held at Fox Studios, Fifth District Councilmember Paul Koretz spoke of the positive impact Century City has made on the City of Los Angeles.
After swearing in the Chamber’s new Board of Directors, Koretz praised the Chamber for making “Century City competitive in luxury retail, and residential, office, healthcare and hospitality.”
Personally thanking Chamber President Susan Bursk, Koretz added, “Century City is such a successful place and it’s one of my top priorities to make sure it thrives.”
The councilmember noted that all one had to do was look at the Century City skyline to see how impressive the area has become. “It’s almost a second Downtown,” he said. “The place to be at if you want to have an office or a business on the Westside.”
With the opening of the Expo Line from Culver City to Santa Monica last month, Koretz said the line gives people in Century City a little more access to transit. He said the City hoped to set up shuttles to make the line more accessible to those that live and work in Century City. Then, to enthusiastic applause, he added, “A few years from now hopefully we will have the purple line coming right into the heart of Century City.”
Noting that the City is continuing to push the purple line forward as quickly as possible, he said, “I can tell you for sure that if we get the [2024 Summer] Olympics, it will be done by 2024 and it will be in Westwood by 2024 as well, a few years ahead of schedule.”
Koretz then turned his attention to the City’s recent budget that was just completed and said that the most positive aspects for the business community in Century City and beyond is that due in part to his efforts, “we added a number of planners and building and safety personnel so we can do our permitting and business development work more quickly.”
He added that it used to take 18 months for a restaurant to receive a permit, he said that it now only takes 8 or 9 months. “That’s still not fast enough so we will continue to work to move our bureaucracy more quickly and make our permitting process more of a one stop shop.”
