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EP’s NOTEBOOK - Eric Preven never let go of a story once the facts began to pile up. The details mattered. The money mattered. The timeline mattered.
One of the issues he returned to repeatedly in his final months was the fate of the Sportsmen’s Lodge property at 12833 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. At a January 2025 meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Preven again raised questions about the vacant hotel building — pointing out that the City had spent nearly half a million dollars restoring it during Project Roomkey, even as plans were underway to demolish it.
Why, he asked aloud, was a building in usable condition being slated for demolition instead of being put to work housing wildfire survivors or others in need?
That question captured the essence of Eric Preven’s work. He was less interested in political talking points than in the public record — and what it revealed.
But the Sportsmen’s Lodge story did not begin in 2025. It stretches back more than two decades, and Preven had been documenting the pieces for years.
Taken together, those pieces suggest a story that extends far beyond a typical CEQA dispute.
The Landmark That Never Became One
The redevelopment battle around Sportsmen’s Lodge dates at least to 2002, when the Studio City Residents Association and the Los Angeles Conservancy nominated the banquet hall and surrounding grounds for Historic-Cultural Monument status.
The Cultural Heritage Commission recommended approval.
But the designation never reached the finish line.
In his October 2022 CityWatch column “Attack Librarians,” Preven documented how developer lobbyist Steve Afriat had brokered what he described as “an absurd deal” to block the landmark designation. According to Preven’s reporting, Afriat had contributed to Friends of Krekorian, a political committee connected to then-Councilmember Paul Krekorian.
In another column, “Subterfuge 101,” Preven wrote that Afriat — working on behalf of developer Richard Weintraub — and political allies effectively allowed the time period for City Council approval of the designation to expire.
Once that window closed, the historic designation was dead.
Within a few years, the property changed hands. In 2007, Weintraub purchased the site for $50 million.
A Pattern Emerges
Over the following years, the Sportsmen’s Lodge redevelopment would move forward in stages, often accompanied by controversy.
In 2013, the City of Los Angeles sued Weintraub over unpaid Transient Occupancy Taxes and Business Taxes. The dispute was eventually settled at a significant discount.
Preven wrote about the settlement in his CityWatch column “Up Up Up,” noting that Krekorian had approved what he described as a below-market resolution.
Preven also highlighted a related issue involving a nearby city firehouse property, which he argued had been transferred to the developer at a steep discount as part of a broader campus consolidation.
In his November 2024 column “A Legacy of Kicking the Can,” Preven summarized the transaction bluntly:
“The firehouse, sold for pennies to Richard Weintraub, who promptly laundered it to Midwood.”
The 2015 Turning Point
By 2015, redevelopment plans for a retail complex — later known as The Shops at Sportsmen’s Lodge — were moving through the city approval process.
The project faced nine community appeals, with residents arguing that the development had been approved with insufficient parking and inadequate public notice.
At the South Valley Area Planning Commission hearing, Karo Torossian, then director of planning and land use for Councilmember Krekorian’s office, appeared in support of the project.
But that same period also produced one of the most consequential legal victories of Preven’s career.
On December 15, 2015, the City Council’s PLUM Committee took up the Sportsmen’s Lodge project. Preven testified at the meeting.
The following day, the full City Council voted on the item during a special meeting.
When Preven attempted to speak again during public comment, he was denied.
The city’s position was that the matter had already been heard at committee.
Preven challenged that interpretation under the Brown Act, ultimately winning a ruling from the Second District Court of Appeal. The decision established that members of the public must be allowed to comment on all items listed on the agenda at special meetings — regardless of prior committee discussion.
The ruling effectively expanded public comment rights across Los Angeles.
Preven later documented that the city had conducted more than 100 special meetings between 2015 and 2019 using the same tactic.
Project Roomkey and the Hotel
The story took another turn during the pandemic.
The Sportsmen’s Lodge hotel was leased by the City as part of Project Roomkey, providing temporary housing for unhoused residents while construction on the adjacent retail center continued.
A Studio City resident later wrote in CityWatch that representatives of the development team had said the arrangement had been encouraged by Krekorian’s office.
When the program ended, residents were given 14 days to vacate.
Shortly afterward, the developer submitted a damage claim to the City totaling $395,434.46.
Preven repeatedly pointed out a troubling detail: at the time the invoice was submitted, plans had already been filed to demolish the hotel.
In other words, the City was being billed for repairs to a building the developer had already decided to tear down.
The Final Vote
The City Council ultimately voted 13-1 in April 2024 to approve the Residences at Sportsmen’s Lodge project, clearing the way for demolition of the hotel.
Council President Paul Krekorian was absent during the vote.
During the meeting, a member of the public attempted to raise Sportsmen’s Lodge issues during public comment but was told by a city attorney that the item was not open for discussion.
To Preven, the moment carried a bitter irony.
The public comment rights he had fought for in court — in a case triggered by the Sportsmen’s Lodge project — were effectively sidelined during the vote that sealed the property’s fate.
The Unanswered Questions
Today, additional lawsuits continue to challenge the project. Erewhon filed a CEQA lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court in May 2024, and the case remains pending.
Meanwhile, local residents have compiled a detailed timeline documenting what they believe may be project segmentation — the practice of dividing a larger development into smaller pieces to avoid full environmental review.
The timeline raises questions about whether planning documents describing the project as “not part of a larger development” were submitted while detailed plans for the larger residential complex were already underway.
Those questions have yet to receive sustained attention from the press or investigators.
A Story Eric Would Not Drop
The Sportsmen’s Lodge saga contains many of the elements that defined Eric Preven’s reporting:
A Valley landmark.
A long paper trail.
Public money.
Political influence.
And timelines that do not always add up.
Preven spent years documenting those details.
The question now is whether others will continue asking the questions he left behind.
Because if there is one thing Eric Preven believed, it was that public records matter — and unfinished stories deserve to be finished.
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