Venice WatchDawg said
Aimco is the, or is one of the, largest rental property owners in the US and has units all over the country. While fighting, what I see as, an unreasonable effort by a group of tenants to somehow squeeze the various owners into selling the property to a "Tenants Collective" run nonprofit, to be funded by Uncle Sugar and the City of LA, and maintain LP as low income housing. They had grand plans that included a mag-lev train on Lincoln with a big station in the Ralph's parking lot.

The historic designation was, in my opinion, a ploy to devalue the property even more and buy more time to set up the funding that never materialized. AGAIN – STICK IT TO THE "MAN." Maybe I'm not the right guy to ask, but there are plenty of other properties in Venice that should be designated as "historical" over this typical-looking apartment complex that was terribly outdated in function, layout, and design, no matter who designed it…

Did they think that any of that 10 year stall, was gonna affect anything but leave a broken down eyesore bringing down the area for a decade? And maybe that WAS the point…  Aimco makes plenty of $$$ in other areas and wrote off huge amounts of tax money and had enough money behind them to wait this one out. And the squalor generator/anti gentrification league were able to keep the largest parcel of residential property in Venice, funky for another ten years.

I know nothing about Aimco but I did meet the former owner, Jim Bisno, who once courted me to be his PR flak and facilitator to the people of Venice on the project when his firm owned it. After a few meetings and a detailed discussion of his plans, I realized that he had no intention of providing ANY affordable units because condos were all the rage at the time and he was not intending to operate any rental component…. so I suggested that he work out a deal with a local housing nonprofit like VCHC to take over, rehab, and rent out a few of the buildings at the SW corner, kind of behind 7-11 to sweeten the deal, make the protesters look foolishly unreasonable, and actually provide some real affordable housing within walking distance of the "transportation corridor" (Lincoln).  That was the last time I was contacted by Mr. Bisno… he was an unreasonable man who was eventually "waited out" and sold the property below value, with all of the contention to Aimco. I wonder how many of the original protest/lawsuit tenant leaders have actually moved back in???

Watch for more of this on smaller properties around Venice as the "old guard" sees their crummy old Venice slipping away.  Aimco will make their money back in spades by charging market rate rents that could not have been imagined when they bought the property – At least the eyesore will be going away…   

This project was more like a hysterical preservation.