Lifestyle
Despite appearances, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is on track for fall completion
To the 300,000 drivers who stream through Agoura Hills on the 101 Freeway every day, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing looks relatively unchanged from last summer, except for some leggy native shrubs growing along the outer walls.
While activity seems to have halted on what is touted to be the world’s largest wildlife crossing, there’s been lots of slow, expensive work at the site that’s hard to spot from the freeway, said Robert Rock, chief executive of Chicago-based Rock Design Associates and the landscape architect overseeing the project. This includes:
- Moving power lines, water lines and other utilities underground — at a cost of nearly $20 million — along the south side of the crossing.
- Drilling at least 140 deep holes along 175 feet of Agoura Road and filling them with concrete to create the foundation for the tunnel over the frontage road. The tunnel will support roughly 3 million cubic feet of soil connecting the south side of the crossing to the Santa Monica Mountains, roughly enough soil to fill half of SoFi Stadium, Rock said.
- Reworking some of the project’s nonwildlife-centered designs to reduce ballooning construction costs. For instance, an underground tunnel that would have permitted utility companies to drive in and check on their equipment has been reduced to a large conduit just big enough for wires and cables to be easily pulled through.
Rock and Beth Pratt, California regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation and leader of the Save LA Cougars campaign, led a tour on top of the crossing during a sunny day last week to discuss the status of the long-awaited project, whose completion date was originally scheduled for the end of 2025.
Crews work on 70-foot-long wire rebar cages that were dropped into holes along Agoura Road and filled with concrete to create the foundation for a 175-foot-long tunnel over the frontage road that will support the south shoulder of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing.
Record rains in 2022 and 2023 created significant delays, pushing the expected completion of the wildlife crossing to the end of this year.
“We want rainfall. We want water because that’s part of making these landscapes healthy and vibrant,” Rock said, “but when you have 14½ inches of rain in 24 hours and an open excavation for the foundation of a massive structure that fills up like a giant bathtub and you’ve got to vacuum all that sludge out of there three separate times and re-compact the soil … you’re going to have delays even if the contractors are moving at lightning speed.”
Rock said the new completion date in November or early December is “aggressive but doable” since the utility moving is now completed, and he expects work to move more rapidly once the the tunnel foundations are completed. The concrete tunnel will be built on-site and then covered with soil this summer. Most of the earth is coming from a small hill on the north side of the crossing that was created when the freeway was built in the 1950s.
The second and final phase of the project — attaching the shoulders that will permit animals to use the crossing — started last summer and is progressing on schedule, Rock said, but it’s also painstaking, expensive and largely invisible work moving overhead power lines underground and drilling thick holes about 70 feet deep. Once a hole is dug, a tall crane slowly slides in a rebar cage that resembles a wire mesh dinosaur spine so the hole can be filled with concrete.
The work is hidden from most freeway passersby and those driving below since Agoura Road is closed during weekday working hours.
Birds, lizards and insects have already been spotted at the top of the uncompleted Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, which rises 30 feet above the 101 Freeway in Agoura Hills. “Build it, and they really do come,” said Beth Pratt, California regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation and leader of the Save LA Cougars campaign, as she looked east at the 101 Freeway traffic from the east edge of the crossing.
This project has more complexities than others around the country, Rock and Pratt said. Other crossings are typically located in more rural areas and chosen based on ease of construction. The location of this crossing was locked in — a slim passage of wilderness in a largely urban area between the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills — so it faced challenges other crossings usually don’t such as moving utilities, skirting heritage oaks no one wants to remove or working around huge numbers of cars. “If we could have closed Agoura Road and the 101, I could have built it in a year,” Pratt said, laughing.
Rising construction costs have been another complication. The expected cost of the entire project, $92.6 million, held until last spring when the bids for the second phase “came back through-the-roof high,” Pratt said.
The contractor C.A. Rasmussen’s bids for Stage 1 of the project came in 8% below Caltran’s estimate, but the bids for Stage 2 pushed the costs about $21 million higher than expected, increasing the total projected cost to about $114 million.
About $77 million of the construction costs will be paid by state money, including a recent infusion of $18 million to help cover the shortfall, “primarily from conservation funds such as voter-approved bond measures or mitigation dollars,” Pratt wrote in an email. Private donors have provided the remaining $37 million, about 32% of the project’s overall construction costs. About $29.4 million of those private donations came from Wallis Annenberg, the crossing’s namesake, who helped kick-start the campaign with $1 million in 2016, after a “60 Minutes” report about the existential peril facing Los Angeles County’s freeway-locked cougars, Pratt said in an interview Friday.
Annenberg, who died last year, contributed $35.5 million for the project, including the $29.4 million specifically for the crossing construction as well as funds to cover design costs, ongoing wildlife research in the region and the project’s native plant nursery.
Construction costs have gone up everywhere over the past year, in large part because of uncertainty about what even the most basic materials such as concrete will cost, said Rock.
“If you’re putting together a bid for a project and you don’t know what the cost of something is going to be a month from now, let alone six months to a year from now, you’re going to roll that speculation into the cost of your pricing, even when you’re talking about something that should be a fairly stable [cost],” Rock said.
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1. Landscapers place hundreds of native buckwheat, sages and other plants on top of the wildlife crossing. 2. Robert Rock stands along flags marking places for plants to be placed on top of the bridge. 3. A landscaper loosens the roots on a purple sage just removed from its gallon pot to prepare it for planting. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Some of that uncertainty is based on the wildfires that decimated large swaths of Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Malibu last January, he said, because the heavy equipment needed for the project was suddenly in huge demand to clear burned properties. And tariffs on Canada and Mexico, two of the country’s largest suppliers of cement, an essential ingredient of concrete, further increased prices on one of the project’s key materials, even among domestic providers, he said.
The project has enough money now to complete construction, Pratt said, but Save LA Cougars is still fundraising, trying to raise another $6 million to cover other non-construction costs including $2 million for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which owns the land, to maintain the crossing habitat (such as removing invasive nonnative black mustard plants that have taken over the north side of the crossing in the Simi Hills).
In an email outlining the costs, Pratt said the money will also provide $1.5 million to the National Park Service to continue the wildlife research that led to the creation of the crossing, when scientists discovered that the freeways crisscrossing the region were making it impossible for cougars and other wildlife to find suitable mates. It will also be used to fund education programs, maintain the crossing’s nursery and train volunteer docents leading popular tours around (but not on) the crossing.
“As this is being regarded as a global model for urban wildlife conservation and connectivity, we have to ensure the research and educational efforts continue for the long-term,” she wrote.
The project’s rising costs have created anxiety for her. “When I saw the Stage 2 bid, I almost had a heart attack,” Pratt said last week. But during the tour, she was too distracted by the progress on the crossing to dwell on the stress. In midsentence, she’d suddenly break off to excitedly note a young kestrel flying near the crossing or a honeybee foraging among some early flowers.
These days the top of the crossing is busy with workers planting hundreds of native plants grown from seed at the project’s nursery nearby. There are plugs of grasses and gallon pots of white sage, purple sage, California buckwheat, long-stem buckwheat, deerweed, narrow leaf milkweed and coyote bush. The top is divided into 10-by-10 grids bristling with small colorful flags designating where the plants should be placed.
Habitat restoration is a huge part of this project, especially since a wide swath of the area was destroyed by the Woolsey fire in 2018, allowing invasive mustard plants to get a firm hold especially on the north side of the crossing. The native plants selected for the crossing all grow nearby, but Rock said the builders also want to make sure they plant the sages, buckwheats and grasses in the same groupings you would find in nature.
Pratt’s stuffed cougar, representing the late P-22 whose bachelor life trapped in Griffith Park helped inspire the project, sat placidly amid workers moving native plants onto the site. She brings him to tours she said, to help remind everyone what the project is ultimately about — saving wildlife.
Native vegetation is being planted at the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills.
Wild animals seem curious about the status of the project. A small herd of mule deer have been spotted nosing around the site of the tunnel construction on Agoura Road and in October, a young female cougar named P-129 was briefly captured and collared in a glen of oaks near the south side of the crossing, said Pratt.
Animals can’t easily get on the crossing now unless they can fly. The top is about 30 feet above the freeway, and the north edge is roughly 50 feet from the hills where it will eventually be connected.
Those sides will have to be carefully filled in, a little on one side, then a little on the other to keep the structure from rocking and falling over, Rock said. Once the soil is packed into place, workers will have to add more native plants to cover those shoulders, about 13 acres in all.
Pratt has immersed herself in wildlife for decades. She recently completed writing a book, “Yosemite Wildlife: The Wonder of Animal Life in California’s Sierra Nevada,” about the wildlife near her home in Northern California, and she’s excited about the prospect of insects, birds and other critters investigating the plants now covering the crossing’s top.
The recent wildlife sightings have caused her to rethink which wild animal will be the first to cross. Originally, she said, she was betting on a coyote, but now she’s putting her money on mule deer.
Rock was quieter. He’s happy about the progress, he said, “but I’m more riddled with anxiety than pride right now because there’s still so much work to be done to make sure we’re giving everything the best possible chance for success.”
Navigating the obstacles while upholding the project’s goals such as creating a self-sustaining native habitat over one of the country’s busiest freeways is critical, he said, because the outcome will influence decisions about future crossings.
The project has had some serious problems, he said, “the kind where people go back into their shells because things are difficult, and they’ve hit a roadblock. But I’m hoping that what we’re doing can become a catalyst for people to take a chance and continue to push down the path even though things are challenging.”
Left to right: Tilda Swinton poses with Renate Reinsve, Cristian Mungiu — winner of the Palme d’Or for Fjord — and Sebastian Stan, during the awards ceremony at the 79th Cannes international film festival, in southern France, on Saturday.
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Romanian director Cristian Mungiu took home the top prize at the 79th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday for his culture-war drama Fjord.
Fjord, which centers on an immigrant family living in Norway, received the Palme D’Or for best film during the closing ceremony held at the Grand Théâtre Lumière in Cannes, France. It stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve.
It’s the second Palme D’Or for Mungiu, who received his first in 2007 for the film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days.
In his acceptance speech, Mungui said that, in making the film, “We took the risk to speak aloud about things that many of us know and many of us share … but don’t dare to say in public.”
And he urged artists to tackle current issues, however uncomfortable.
“Today, the society is split, it’s divided, it’s radicalized,” he said. “This film is a pledge against any kind of fundamentalism. It’s a pledge for the things we quote very, very often, like tolerance and inclusion and empathy. … These are lovely words, but we need to apply them more often.”
Actress Barbra Streisand, who received the festival’s third Honorary Palme D’Or, could not attend in person because of a knee injury but thanked everyone in a video message.
“In a crazy, volatile world that seems more fractured every day, it’s reassuring to see the compelling movies at this festival by artists from many countries,” Streisand said. “Film has that magical ability to unite us, opening our hearts and minds.”
Twenty-two films were competing for the prestigious prize, including American films The Man I Love (directed by Ira Sachs) and Paper Tiger (James Gray).
Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared the best actress honor for the talky, philosophical drama All of a Sudden. Valentin Campagne and Emmanuel Macchia won best actor Award for Coward, about a World War I love story.
For L.A. cool girl and actor Taylour Paige, the perfect Sunday involves lots of shopping — shopping for statement jewelry at Maxfield, minimalist yet playful clothing at Jacquemus and vintage home decor at Pierce & Ward.
“I really love fashion,” says the Inglewood native. “I appreciate fashion. I respect fashion.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Paige’s latest project, “I Love Boosters,” is centered on fashion as well. Written and directed by Boots Riley, the maximalist film follows the Velvet Gang, a pack of small-time shoplifters (played by Paige, Keke Palmer and Naomi Ackie) as they attempt to take down a ruthless fashion mogul in the name of “fashion-forward filantrophy.” It hits theaters Friday.
Once she learned that Riley was behind the film, she knew she had to be a part of it.
“When I met Boots, he was like, ‘This is the smaller role of the three in the Velvet Gang,’ and I was like ‘I don’t care. I want to work with you,’” says Paige, who has also starred in the film “Zola” and HBO’s “It: Welcome to Derry.”
With her baby and husband by her side, here’s how the new mom would spend a Sunday in L.A.
This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.
7 a.m.: Take a little walk and grab a matcha
I’m a mother so I could wake up anytime between 6 to 8 a.m. When I breastfeed, he’ll actually go back to sleep but it really just depends on the night we had. I’ll have my morning matcha. There was a period where I was making my ceremonial-grade matcha at home and I would like to get back to that, but there’s something about walking to get my matcha that I just really enjoy. I like that it’s a little outing. I like the matcha at Erewhon, but only because I know that when I ask for almond milk, they’re giving me the Malk [brand] which only contains almonds and Himalayan salt. I also like Community Goods, which my homie Pedro runs. My typical breakfast is eggs with Celtic salt and I’ll drizzle some olive oil on it. Maybe I’ll have some cottage cheese or shredded carrots as well.
10:30 a.m.: Stock up at the farmers market
Once we’re up, I have to go to the farmers market in Atwater Village. I need my organic eggs, my strawberries, my lemons, my lemongrass, my hummus and my ghee. Maybe I’ll get like some gorgeous Japanese sweet potato cause I try to eat a sweet potato daily. I eat it with the skin on because you gotta get beta carotene [laughs]. Also, my husband makes this beautiful lemongrass tea that I love at night. It’s kind of been my little postpartum treat that I look forward to. I feel so feminine when I drink it. I don’t know how to explain it, but we get a big bunch at the farmers market on Sundays. Going to the farmers market makes me feel ready for the week.
12:30 p.m.: A second matcha and a late breakfast
Then we’re going to have a late breakfast at All Time. I’m getting the salmon with the crispy rice, broccoli, onions and two big eggs on top. It’s got a little bit of a tart taste. It has a special sauce that you pour on top of it. Probably because I’m sleep-deprived, I’m getting another matcha and a hot water with lemon.
2:30 p.m. Time for some shopping
Then we’re gonna stroll into Pierce & Ward, which is just a couple stores down. It’s a home interior design store. The storefront is literally the color green. It’s just beautiful. I love beautiful things. They do upholstering, but they have a lot of cute little tchotchkes. They’ve got incense. They’ve got beautiful stools, striped upholstering, but they also have, you know, soaps and again incense, and just cute things. The people are so kind in there.
Then we’re going to head over to Melrose Place. We’re going to Margiela and Violet Grey. I’m going to pop into Maxfield. I’m going to try on jewelry. I recently tried on this beautiful Jennifer Meyer emerald gold necklace that I wanted and I was like “How much?” They were like “14” and I was like “Oh, $1,400,” and they were like, “No, $14,000.” I was like, “Oh, OK, cute. I’ll be back.” They have gorgeous Phoebe Philo [pieces], Miu Miu flats, Louise Trotter’s Bottega. I’m having a ball trying things on. Maybe we’re going to swing into Jacquemus because it’s so cute. It’s like a French dream. The girls who work there are so kind and so fly. They told me that he had the couches specifically designed to look like his mom’s couches in his childhood home. They’re bright yellow. It just feels really happy and like a breath of fresh air, and obviously the clothes are beautiful.
4 p.m.: Discover new beauty brands at Formula Fig
There’s this place called Formula Fig. I’m not going to spend too much time in there. Of course they have really beautiful, curated skin care, but they also have cute random things for your hands and feet. You know how we have social media, which is constantly feeding us with things we don’t need, but because someone is selling it to us, it impacts us psychologically. I like that Formula Fig is an experience where you go into the store and discover on your own.
If we have time, we’ll hop in the car and head over to Arcana [Books on the Art]. I can ask anyone who works there, but I’ll ask Lee about absolutely anything. Let’s just say I don’t know what I want, but I know what I’m feeling, or what I want to learn more of, they’re actually art historians in there and they deeply care about books and artists and people. It ends up opening other tabs of people, artists, photographers, writers, painters, watercolor and musicians that I’ve never heard of or I’ve always wanted to know more about.
5:30 p.m.: Sushi for dinner
We’re going to drive our ass to Burbank and we’re getting Sushi Yuzu. Life hack: If they’re too full, we’ll literally go a couple blocks west and hit Kabosu, which is their sister restaurant. I’ve been going here for 10 years. It’s the greatest sushi, so fresh. I love every chef there. We’re starting with the garlic edamame, obviously. Then I’m getting the lime roll, the albacore crispy onion, the garlic sashimi, and I’m going to keep ordering and ordering and be so happy. I’ve put so many people on. I should get equity in the restaurant or something.
7:30 p.m.: Sunset walk before bed
You want a fart walk right after your meal, right? [laughs] So we’re going to go for a nice sunset walk in our neighborhood. Then we’re heading home, giving the baby a bath, I’m taking a shower and we’re going to bed at like 9:30 p.m.
“Affordable luxury” brand Everlane has been bought by the ultrafast-fashion giant Shein.
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Shein, the ultrafast-fashion juggernaut, is buying Everlane, a brand that once pitched millennial shoppers on a vision of fashion with “ethical factories” and “radical transparency” into how its clothes were made and priced.
“This is the start of a bigger chapter for Everlane and the team behind it,” CEO Alfred Chang said in a statement shared with NPR. He did not disclose the size of the deal, but added that Everlane would remain “an independent brand, staying true to our longstanding brand values, sustainability commitments, and exceptional quality.”
Buying California-based Everlane gives Shein a bigger U.S. foothold and access to a higher-end online-retail model. Shein was founded in China but has ballooned into a global giant, up on the latest TikTok micro-trends with dresses under $15 and jewelry under $5.
Shein shelved its plans to become a publicly traded company in either the U.S. or in Europe, as it faced extensive legal complaints and scrutiny by lawmakers on both continents, particularly over its labor practices.
For Everlane, the deal appears to present a lifeline. CEO Chang promised a new era with “expanded global reach, new capabilities, and greater opportunities.”
But Everlane fans mourned online, with posts accusing the brand of selling out and betraying them. A headline by Fast Company declared: “The era of millennial optimism is officially over.”
Once sported by celebrity fashionistas like Meghan Markle and Angelina Jolie, Everlane focuses on minimalist basics and natural fabrics in the “affordable-luxury” category, with tailored shorts for $120 and linen tops for $80.
The company came of age in the 2010s in the wave of trendy direct-to-consumer companies. Like sneaker-maker Allbirds, they wooed shoppers with pitches of sustainability and transparency. (Yes, that same Allbirds in April claimed it was pivoting to becoming an AI company).
Everlane’s finances have faltered in recent years. With debt weighing heavy on the brand, the majority owner, private equity firm L Catterton, decided to sell. Shein and L Catterton did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment. After Puck earlier reported news of the deal, it ricocheted through the fashion world.
“Everlane was built on this brand around sustainability and fewer, better things — and Shein often feels the opposite,” says Katie Thomas, who leads the Kearney Consumer Institute, a think tank inside a consulting firm that works with major retailers and brands.
“The biggest challenge with any value-based product is the price has to be right for the right consumer,” Thomas says. “And Everlane, I think, just was exposed to a category that got crowded.”
Now, brands like Aritzia, Reformation and even Gap are pitching “affordable luxury,” — as is another of Everlane’s rivals, Quince, which is wooing shoppers with much lower prices.
One big question now, Thomas says, is whether a tie-up with a paragon of fast-fashion alienates Everlane’s current clientele — or sways Shein shoppers to trade up.
Shein for years has tried to shed its fast-fashion reputation with sustainability commitments. Another question now: Will it benefit from Everlane’s internal processes? Or will Everlane become a faster-moving trend chaser?
So far, the answers to those questions are murky.
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