Rick Caruso’s The Grove Files Lawsuit Challenging L.A.’s Television City Expansion
The redevelopment project, led by Hackman Capital Partners, was approved in early January
By Nick Trombola February 18, 2025 6:15 pm
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A legal battle is taking shape between two of the most prominent names in Los Angeles real estate, as Rick Caruso’s trophy retail property The Grove, among others, attempts to challenge Michael Hackman’s $1 billion Television City expansion.
The company that manages The Grove — the roughly 600,000-square-foot luxury mall owned by Caruso in L.A.’s Fairfax District — filed a lawsuit against the city of L.A. and studio developer and owner Hackman Capital Partners (HCP) earlier this month, claiming that the city’s approval of the neighboring Television City studio expansion project in early January violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The suit ultimately seeks to overturn the city’s decision.
The 25-acre, nearly 1 million-square-foot redevelopment of the famed studio is “frustratingly undefined,” The Grove’s complaint said, according to a report by the L.A. Times. That ambiguity makes it difficult to accurately measure the project’s environmental effects, the complaint argues, with the City Council showing “stunning disregard” for CEQA regulations in its approval.
The Grove is adjacent to Television City along Fairfax Avenue, and the proximity led to previous clashes between HCP and the project’s detractors during its entitlement process. HCP first introduced its plan to redevelop and expand the studio in 2021, after purchasing it in 2018 from CBS for $750 million.
Caruso meanwhile has previously maligned CEQA, as well as groups who used the 55-year-old law to “unfairly” challenge development projects. As part of his 2022 mayoral campaign, Caruso pledged to require a $15,000 application fee for CEQA complaints (specifically in regard to housing projects) in order to “reduce frivolous CEQA challenges that impede sensible development.” (He’s also once tried to circumvent the law, attempting in 2016 to use a voter-sponsored initiative for a mall development in Carlsbad to avoid CEQA review).
“The Grove strongly supports the entertainment industry,” Chris Robertson, senior vice president at Caruso, told Commercial Observer in an emailed statement. “But we all need to be good neighbors, and without changes, this project will create additional traffic, parking problems, pollution and other harmful impacts in our community. There is significant community opposition to this project, with four residential associations and local businesses filing challenges. We remain hopeful that our concerns about the project’s negative impacts to The Grove and our neighbors can be resolved.”
The Grove isn’t alone in its opposition to the Television City project. Three other lawsuits filed by A.F. Gilmore Company, owner of the adjoining Original Farmers Market, Save Beverly Fairfax (a local volunteer organization advocating for preserving the neighborhood’s architectural and cultural history) and the Beverly Wilshire Homes Association also aim for the city to overturn the redevelopment’s approval.
HCP, for its part, said in a statement that it had seen similar “tactics” throughout redevelopment’s approval process, and claimed that the project had “broad support” from business, labor and environmental groups and the local community.
“These coordinated lawsuits are an unfortunate but predictable abuse of CEQA to stop the Television City studio plan,” Zach Sokoloff, senior vice president of HCP, said in a statement. “At every step of the city process, the TVC Project was unanimously approved. Despite these continued efforts to block this investment into the entertainment industry, we remain steadfast in our commitment to keeping Hollywood in Hollywood. A modernized Television City will help make that possible.”
Caruso, a billionaire developer, has been front and center in the public eye since the L.A. wildfires began in early January, appearing regularly on major podcasts and shows like “The Joe Rogan Experience,” “Real Time with Bill Maher” and “Making Sense with Sam Harris” to discuss the city’s response to the blazes and other topics. He also earlier this month announced the rollout of Steadfast LA, a new nonprofit complete with a legion of business executives, attorneys and civic leaders that seeks to expedite the rebuilding process.
Yet the billionaire developer and former president of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners has thus far played coy about his future political ambitions, telling Harris in late January that while he would love to serve in another civil service role, he needs to “get around the idea of going through [a campaign] again.”
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
