Inside El Segundo’s Smoky Hollow Redevelopment Project

El Segundo has revealed plans to overhaul the Smoky Hollow district, a 120-acre site between Pacific Coast Highway and historic Downtown El Segundo. The area has recently emerged as a creative hub. The new Smoky Hollow Specific plan will encourage more growth by allowing for adaptive reuse projects—a strategy that spurred major growth in Downtown Los Angeles. This will allow developers to convert industrial space into office space, increasing the existing office supply in the city by nearly 900,000 square feet by 2040. We sat down with Gregg McClain, El Segundo planning manager, to hear more about the new plan and how it will impact the city.

GlobeSt.com: What is the vision for the redevelopment of Smoky Hollow?

Gregg McClain: Smoky Hollow is slowly transitioning to a district characterized by creative offices, small studios and similar uses. Our present specific plan envisioned that the district would remain light industrial with a sprinkling of these other uses. In the past decade or so the light industrial uses are continuing to be replaced by design studios, creative and professional offices and the like. So with this update to the specific plan, we are trying to align our vision with what is happening organically. We want to capitalize on Smoky Hollow’s image to promote the transformation without the city being an obstacle due to its now outdated specific plan.