LA Weekly goes Westside

Talk about culture shock. The LA Weekly is leaving its longtime physical and spiritual home on Sunset Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood for a sad stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard in Culver City, hard against the Venice Boulevard on-ramp to the northbound 405 Freeway. Nobody else wanted the building, apparently, but the Weekly grabbed it for ten years. Move-in is scheduled for next May, says the L.A. Business Journal.

Beth Sestanovich, publisher of LA Weekly, said that the new offices, which will feature prominent LA Weekly signage, are a significant upgrade from the newspaper’s current digs at 6715 Sunset Blvd.

“It is dated and old and it is a very difficult layout and as a result there is a lot of unusable space,” said Sestanovich. The newspaper has been at the Hollywood offices for about 15 years.

The new building is located in Culver City, just south of Venice Boulevard. The property backs up to the freeway, affording the newspaper signage that faces the freeway.

“It is a highly identifiable building on the 405 and it is an excellent opportunity,” said Blake Mirkin of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., who represented the landlord. Mirkin said the building was on the market “for some time” because of its challenging location on the edge of two office submarkets.

Considering how many commutes will drastically change, not to mention after-work hangout habits — is this the end of LA Weekly bashes at Boardner's? — you have to wonder if it's Mike Lacey's revenge on the Weekly's pre-New Times staff. Lacey is known to prefer the Westside when he visits the L.A. outpost of his Village Voice Media empire.