HOLLYWOOD-Property owners in one of the most active development areas of Hollywood have launched a new business improvement district called the Sunset & Vine BID. The new business improvement district is the work of the property owners, city officials and the Central Hollywood Coalition, a nonprofit corporation that has worked for the last five years to create the Sunset & Vine Business Improvement District.

The new BID officially goes into business on Jan. 1, following a vote in which more than 60% of the property owners in the district favored its formation, after which the Los Angeles City Council adopted an ordinance creating the BID. The district, among the newest of a number of BIDs in the city, begins with a budget of $1.23 million and with Don Duckworth of Duckworth Consulting as the interim executive director for the district.

Among the projects either under way or planned in the BID area are a new 115,000-sf building at the Sunset & Gower Studios space that will be fully occupied by Technicolor. Others include the locally based CIM Group's conversion of the 20-story, 69,000-sf Sunset & Vine Tower into 63 luxury apartment units and 8,300 sf of retail space, a 300-room and 150-residence W Hollywood Hotel & Residences that is planned for a 2009 opening, plus other projects bringing retail, residential and office space to the district.

The Sunset & Vine BID area generally includes 253 separate parcels and 127 separate ownerships. The area includes all parcels within one block of Sunset Boulevard between Cassil Place and Seward Street on the west and the 101 Freeway on the East, as well as one block of Vine Street between Selma Avenue on the North and La Mirada Avenue on the South.

The BID has earmarked its first-year budget for security, landscape improvements, beautification, street cleaning, marketing, promotion and efforts to aid the homeless coordination. More than half of the total budget will be spent on security.

Dirk Degraeve of Paramount Developers and Contractors, who is president of the Central Hollywood Coalition, cites the host of projects either under way or planned that will include condominiums, apartments, affordable housing, retail, restaurants and entertainment venues. The development and the work that the BID does, "will help preserve and celebrate the area's historical significance and character" with "a new and fresh urban neighborhood for people to live and work and visitors to enjoy," Degraeve says.