[LAMetroGuy]

Here is a picture of the Whole Foods in Portland... do you think the grand ave Whole Foods will look similar???? ha!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v628/pdxstreetcar/whofo01.jpg

[LongBeachUrbanist]

It would be great if it looked like that. It all depends on the architect team.

I would hope the design of the Hill Street frontage would try to create a feeling of history, and not be just some modernist ego-statement that scowls at the pedestrians below for being too stupid to "get it". There's already too much of that in Downtown LA. What DTLA needs is some charm, dammit!!!

[DJM19]

yeah, I dont want a crazy modern building. I want some classic architecture feel to the buildings.

[Bernd]

yeah, I dont want a crazy modern building. I want some classic architecture feel to the buildings.

There's no "classic" architecture in the area. It would fit better if it were modern.

[DJM19]

Well, I dont mind modern, just dont make it crazy. It should be grand, not abstract.

[ThreeHundred]

I would like to see the so called 'iconic tower' to resemble the Cal Trans building. Not in width mind you. But in terms of presense. I want to look at it and just marvel at it's facade and it's overall presense.

I wouldn't want to have a ultra-modern mass of buildings. I want to see the buildings that really don't reflect any sory of time period. Like City Hall..it was built in the 30's but still is very modern in terms of design.

But you have to understand that it'll probably have to reflect it's location in downtown with the Disney Hall across the street and Our Lady of the Angel's not too far away. I'm hoping that the design of the buildings will sort of blend in to those two landmarks.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Well the corner of Second/Hill is going to have to appeal to pedestrians coming up Second Street. So whatever style they choose, I think the that corner should at least try to be appealing to the pedestrians coming up Second or Hill.

Notice the picture above. From that picture, it's hard to tell how big the modernist building is rising above, it could be 50 stories for all I know. But at least for the first three floors, there was an attempt to make it attractive to pedestrians. Nice details, signage, lighting, friendly colors, etc. This is what I'm talking about.

People go to other cities and talk about the pretty gaslamps or the cobblestone, or otherwise the sights and smells of the city's center. Wouldn't it be nice if people came away from DTLA saying that? It doesn't have to be old to be charming.

[LAMetroGuy]

How about something like the Jedi Tower? HA!

[LAMetroGuy]

Los Angeles faces a rarity in urban redevelopment: acres of virtually blank space in its downtown core. The planned $1.8-billion Grand Avenue project, a residential and commercial complex intended to knit together a swath of landmarks from City Hall through Disney Hall and the Museum of Contemporary Art, will in the short term displace only an ugly parking structure and some asphalt. That means no contentious fights over what might be torn down. It also means there is little historic template to impart verve and flavor to the new construction.

This grungy tabula rasa could become anything, and the tentative plan made public this week provides a hopeful if still sketchy glimpse of the future. There is a lot to like about the privately funded project, including the inclusion of affordable housing units and a 16-acre park linking Bunker Hill to the Civic Center — not to mention the fact that the plan is (and must stay) privately funded. Skeptics do worry about the project's likely middle-of-the-road architects and lack of well-defined street activity. They raise fears that its developer, Related Cos. of California, will go for the easy fix: a string of inward-facing chain stores that could as easily be at the Grove or Century City.

There's an equally powerful argument that downtown workers and residents would love to have it so good: Barnes & Noble! Nordstrom! The Gap! Whole Foods Market! A multiplex! They may cherish the elegant park running from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to City Hall, but they'll spend more time at the supermarket. Downtown, with any luck, will get its familiar chain stores. Yet the Grand Avenue project will succeed only if it has a range of commerce — including, say, unique art galleries and other stores not found in suburbia. It also needs to incorporate public gathering space, a modern-day commons, which the city direly needs. That park space is crucial.

To ensure that the whole of downtown offers an experience unlike any suburban mall, public officials such as county Supervisor Gloria Molina and City Councilwoman Jan Perry, whose districts would be home to the project, need to encourage the eclectic commercial mix and the survival of some attractive public space during any "refinements" of the plan.

It will also be up to the developers to provide opportunities for serendipity and urban sophistication along with a lucrative chain-store-and-restaurant backbone. As for the architecture of the buildings and the space itself, the developer must proceed with care, lest Frank Gehry's Disney Hall become encircled by mediocrity. Gehry, once part of the Grand Avenue planning, now seems to be receding from it. But the project needs a voice like his, rambunctious and visionary.

Los Angeles is at last valuing its lovely, neglected old commercial buildings and turning them into living and working spaces. The Grand Avenue project can be a powerful catalyst for filling the void of downtown after dark, and advancing the renaissance of adjacent parts of L.A.'s core.

[LAMetroGuy]

CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
If the Vision Is Well Executed, It Could Be Grand

By Christopher Hawthorne, Times Staff Writer

When it comes to the redevelopment of Grand Avenue, will Thom Mayne wind up looking like the proverbial canary in the coal mine? And is Frank Gehry poised to join the project in full?

Those questions remain unanswered after a master plan for Los Angeles' downtown core earned preliminary approval Monday from the Grand Avenue Authority, a body that includes city and county officials and was created to oversee the project.

The master plan is something of a paradox. Though privately financed, the project holds the potential not just to revitalize downtown but to reassert its very public-ness. It was unveiled at a news conference by the New York-based developer Related Cos. and the Grand Avenue Committee, a panel chaired by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad. The plan itself was produced largely by Related and the Chicago office of architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

The $1.8-billion project proposes adding nine acres of mixed-use development, including as many as five residential towers of 25 to 50 stories each, immediately to the south and east of Walt Disney Concert Hall. It also calls for a 16-acre park — a potentially stunning space that would sweep down the hill in a series of terraces, from the Music Center to the steps of City Hall.

More broadly, the plan aims to stitch together downtown's stand-alone architectural icons — City Hall, Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, Jose Rafael Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and Arata Isozaki's Museum of Contemporary Art — with a new fabric of housing, retail and outdoor spaces. On the commercial side, it would add a boutique hotel, an upscale grocery, an art-house cinema, a health club and several restaurants to the area ringed by 1st Street, 2nd Street, Grand Avenue and Hill Street. That piece of land, just down the hill from Disney Hall, now is covered by parking lots.

The redevelopment will offer a high-profile, high-stakes test of the public-private partnerships that have grown so popular in cash-strapped cities around the country. Such partnerships require elected officials to cede substantial control of traditionally civic initiatives to developers. In this case, in exchange for fast-track approvals for the commercial component, which could bring the company a windfall, Related has agreed to build the park at no cost to taxpayers.

If well executed, the park could give downtown the truly vibrant gathering place civic leaders have dreamed of since the City Beautiful Movement at the turn of the previous century. But if it is sterile, overly precious or devotes too much space to high-priced retail pavilions, it will reinforce the city's reputation as a place where the private and the profitable trump the public every time, and where the main architectural attractions are out-of-the-way jewels connected only by a gridlocked freeway system.

Now designed to cover 16 acres, the park could find extra breathing room if two aging buildings, the 1958 County Courthouse and 1961 Hall of Administration, were demolished and their tenants moved to a new office tower on Hill Street. Knocking down the courthouse, on 1st between Grand and Hill, would help connect the park more successfully to the commercial development, from which it is substantially walled off in the current version of the master plan. But the demolitions would require bringing public money and vigorous public leadership to a development that has so far lacked both.

Related has assembled a high-powered if conservative group of designers to execute its vision, including SOM's Philip Enquist, who helped develop Millennium Park in Chicago; his SOM colleague David Childs, who has been battling with Daniel Libeskind over the design of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site in New York; Philadelphia-based landscape architect Laurie Olin; and local architect Brenda Levin.

Mayne and his Santa Monica firm, Morphosis, were part of the original Related lineup. The architect — who was awarded the Pritzker Prize, his field's highest honor, this year — is known for hard-edged designs that aren't always kind to individual users or pedestrians. Still, there can be no doubting the level of his commitment to Los Angeles or his fierce impatience with traditional development formulas, which have produced so many soulless, fortress-like office towers downtown in the last two decades.

That's why his split from the Related team, which Mayne says came after his first and only presentation to the company, should be cause for concern — even for those with reservations about his architecture. Above all, Mayne's presence offered hope that the project might avoid the glossily generic feel that has marked other recent Related buildings, notably the mall-like Time Warner Center in Manhattan, also an SOM design.

Gehry, who earlier was allied with one of Related's competitors for the job, has taken Mayne's place as the resident celebrity architect on the developer's roster. But precisely what role he will play remains unclear. He has reportedly been in talks with Related to design the project's architectural icon, a 45- to 50-story hotel and condominium tower at the corner of Grand Avenue and 2nd Street.

But confirmation of that assignment was notably missing from the proceedings Monday — as was Gehry himself. Related officials appear confident that they will come to an agreement with the architect that would allow him to design the tower. If they don't, or if Gehry stays on simply as an advisor, it would be a significant red flag, especially given the developer's inability to keep Mayne (and the talented landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson, another early casualty) on its team. And it would lend credence to the cynical notion that Gehry joined the project primarily to keep a watchful eye on the area around Disney Hall.

Worst of all, failure to bring in Gehry as a significant partner would only amplify complaints that Related has been more interested in adding the names of cutting-edge designers to its team at crucial points in the approval process than in actually working with those figures.

These issues take on added urgency because the master plan unveiled Monday hovers precariously between intelligently civic-minded and strictly bottom-line-driven planning. The developers and their architects are so far saying all the right things. They have devoted 20% of the new residential buildings to affordable units and insist they are committed to taking advantage of the site's links to public transportation. They speak with convincing fluency about "porosity" — about making sure the commercial and retail areas promote a sense of openness and free flow of pedestrian traffic from surrounding streets.

Indeed, their comments suggest the extent to which a new planning gospel has begun to emerge in U.S. cities. The latest formula — and however progressive it appears, it is still a formula — begins with a healthy dose of New Urbanist thinking about pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use development, with housing placed atop stores and restaurants that open onto the street. It then adds a touch of the high-rise residential density that cities such as San Diego and Vancouver have successfully brought to their downtowns.

The result in this case is a master plan in which the height and relative skinniness of the residential towers buys room for open space at their feet and, to the north and east, in the new park. In theory, at least, this represents an immense improvement over previous development strategies downtown. The Related scheme, like all master plans, is merely a framework: It details how the parcels would be sliced up but not who would design them. And although it offers a chance to revivify the public realm downtown, it also could do the opposite.

It will all depend on execution, of course, and on how much leeway Related gives its collaborating architects and designers — particularly those, such as Gehry and Levin, who can help the project reflect the fact that it is in Los Angeles and not Tucson, Minneapolis or Manhattan. God may be in the details, as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said, but in developments like this, the devil is too.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

As great as it is to have a "blank slate" in that part of Downtown, it's important to remember why this is so. It's because the early CRA went ape-shit in the mid-sixties, tearing down the entire neighborhood on Bunker Hill before they even had anything to put there. Then those parcels sat undeveloped for over 40 years. And because of this over-destruction, the properties on Spring Street lost most of their value, and have sat underused to the present day.

That isn't good fortune, that's stupid, egotistical planning. Downtown LA has been screwed over for decades by bad planning. And mistakes like this take decades to fix.

All the more reason to design this project right, and not waste this last precious space on an anonymous fortress-mall.

[Art]

^ No, that corner is not part of the plan. I think that's reserved for future construction. Currently occupied by skateboarders. The parking lot directly west of City Hall is included, however.

Actually my directions are wrong, you describe the lot I meant(across fom city hall, with old steps and foundation still). Any pics or talk of waht will go on this lot, it seems like a big connector.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

^ If you mean the parking lot in front of City Hall, yes that will be included, and will be the public plaza, used for farmer's markets, protests, New Year's Eve celebrations, etc.

All the parcels between City Hall and the Music Center that are strictly in the middle of the block will be part of the Great Park. The other parts will have gardens, a great lawn, etc. The idea is to have a variety of activities all the time, and not just be a dead park. I've heard it compared to Bryant Park in New York City, which is pictured below:

http://arthur.keksdose.net/archives/images/20040427Bryant.jpg

http://www.ofb.net/~andrewc/serenepia/index.cgi/photos/nyc/bryant_park_summerish.jpg

http://www.unreality.net/photographs/november04/110404_19.jpg

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Here's one more article about approval of the Grand Avenue Project. Since all the articles basically say the same thing, I've only copied and highlighted things I haven't read elsewhere. For the complete article, go here. (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20050525-9999-1n25grand.html)

Development aimed at uniting downtown L.A. moves forward
Condos, shops, park part of plan

LOS ANGELES – A $1.5 billion urban redevelopment project that could dramatically reshape downtown Los Angeles has taken a key step forward with the approval of a master plan that includes high-rise condominium towers, restaurants, shops and a 16-acre park near Walt Disney Concert Hall.

...

At a ceremony Monday to announce approval of the master plan, outgoing Mayor James Hahn called for using state transportation funds to put block-long stretches of two major streets underground so the park's green space could stretch unbroken above. In a measure of the high civic hopes riding on the project, Hahn was joined at the ceremony by former Mayor Richard Riordan and Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa.

...

Schatz and many other downtown boosters and city officials are hoping that National Football League owners will take note of downtown Los Angeles' building boom at their meeting this week, and decide to locate a team at the Coliseum. The owners are considering two other sites for a Los Angeles-area franchise: Anaheim and Pasadena.

...

"Los Angeles has been described as a bunch of suburbs in search of a city," Riordan said at Monday's ceremony. "We're finally going to have a city, a downtown Los Angeles."

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

I like that idea by hahn, i hope it gets some recognition.

[citywatch]

It's because the early CRA went ape-shit in the mid-sixties, tearing down the entire neighborhood on Bunker Hill before they even had anything to put there.
I think BH &, in turn, DT in general, would've been an even bigger mess if the ratty, raunchy old structures that once sat there & in other parts of the hood (such as around the Elleven condo bldg) had been kept in place over the past many yrs. However, I wish the land they once occupied had been left as open fields of land instead of being switched over to deadzone parking lots.

One example of a part of BH that once was a dive but has since been neutralized is the parcel between Olive & Hill directly north of 4th, where the last phase of Cal Plaza is supposed to rise. Although it's a gap or a missing link, at least it's a relatively decent looking one, currently similar to a temporary pocket park.

I know the junk that once sat south of the original portion of the convention ctr, or the southwest corner of Pico & Fig, that was razed over 10 yrs ago to make way for the expansion of the hall was a total dump. I recall driving by there at the time & thinking what a ridiculously depressing black hole it was. After the land was cleared out, I went by it again & thought that a ray of sunshine, literally & figuratively, had somehow broken through all the gloom that once dominated that location.

As for the businesses that occupied bldgs on Spring St back in the 1950s & 60s, there's a very good possibility that if alternative sites hadn't been created for them around or south of BH, many of them would have relocated much farther west, to mid Wilshire (which, in fact, some of them did do anyway), or even farther away, to Century City or Westwood, if not farther out than that.

[citywatch]

Related has assembled a high-powered if conservative group of designers to execute its vision, including SOM's Philip Enquist, who helped develop Millennium Park in Chicago; his SOM colleague David Childs, who has been battling with Daniel Libeskind over the design of the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site in New York.

Above all, Mayne's presence offered hope that the project might avoid the glossily generic feel that has marked other recent Related buildings, notably the mall-like Time Warner Center in Manhattan, also an SOM design.
I've read about the infighting between Childs & Libeskind, which is a big reason plans for replacing the WTC have gotten bogged down or screwed up. Related better not dare allow that to happen here, or if they & SOM attempt to foist on us a West Coast version of the sterile, vertical burb-like Time Warner Ctr in NYC, then ppl who care about DT LA had better raise a holy hell.

[citywatch]

LA Times, May 26, 2005

Will This Time Be Different?

Downtown L.A. project is just the latest renewal bid. But a residential surge may turn the tide.

By Cara Mia DiMassa and Nicholas Shields
Times Staff Writers

Deborah Racine has lived in downtown Los Angeles for five years, and she calls it home. Nearly every morning, about 9 a.m., she leaves her residential tower near Grand Avenue and 2nd Street for a stroll into the city — past parking lots, hotels and office buildings, past the public library, past Grand Central Market. But when she need groceries, Racine, 48, a charity-events coordinator, often gets into her car and drives either north into Pasadena or west to the shopping district around Farmers Market.

Racine's routine is familiar to many of the thousands of residents who have moved into apartments, condos and lofts around downtown in recent years. Even as they praise the vertical living and urban feel, Racine and others say they've had to get used to living in an area without the chain bookstores, supermarkets and other shopping spots found in suburbia and other parts of L.A.

City and county officials signed off Monday on a massive retail, office and residential complex along Grand Avenue that backers say would fill the void. The project is the most ambitious of several efforts in the last three decades to bring upscale neighborhood services to downtown. The others — including the 1970s-era Macy's Plaza enclosed mall on 7th Street and the 1980s-era 7th & Fig shopping center — largely attract office workers, and some merchants there say business has been slow.

What has changed now? Downtown boosters say the area finally has the residential population needed to support such businesses. The population in the Central City has risen from an estimated 18,652 residents in 1998 to about 24,604 today, according to the Los Angeles Downtown Business Improvement District. Based on developments in the pipeline or under construction, the organization estimates that the population could grow to 48,000 in the next decade. (Census data for downtown since 2000 are unavailable).

Even before ground is broken on the Grand Avenue project, other developments catering to the new residents are moving forward rapidly. Near 4th and Main streets, a sprinkling of restaurants and other businesses cater to a burgeoning population of loft-dwellers, who have settled into painstakingly restored old buildings. Southwest of there, near Staples Center, a 50,000-square-foot Ralphs is under construction — the first chain supermarket in downtown in decades. That project will also have 267 condominiums and a series of small restaurants and services — including a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a UPS store and a Coldstone Creamery — and is slated to open late next year.

The Grand Avenue project is still in the planning stages, and its first phase would not open for at least four years. Backed by a cadre of power players including Eli Broad, county Supervisor Gloria Molina and Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa, the project would add a cluster of high-rise buildings around Walt Disney Concert Hall, including a shopping center with a multiplex theater, a bookstore, upscale supermarket and other retail businesses.

The $1.8-billion plan calls for five new skyscrapers, one of them a 45- to 50-story building that would house a boutique hotel and condominiums. Also included are 400,000 square feet of retail shops and a terraced park connecting Bunker Hill with the Civic Center. Officials say the project will be privately financed.

This is not downtown's first attempt at revitalization. In the decades before World War II, the area was a destination point for people across Southern California — what Ken Bernstein, director of preservation for the Los Angeles Conservancy, calls "Third Street Promenade, Old Town Pasadena plus CityWalk all rolled into one." People would travel for miles — many via streetcar — to shop at downtown's grand department stores: Bullock's at 7th and Broadway; Robinsons at 7th and Hope Street; the Broadway at 4th and Broadway; and May Co. at Broadway and 8th Street. They would find entertainment at a profusion of lavish movie palaces, restaurants and nightclubs nearby.

But after World War II the rise of the suburbs — and the shopping malls that came with them — began the steep decline of downtown's retail core. Most of the big old free-standing department stores eventually closed down. While Broadway's dense assortment of shops emerged as a popular shopping district among Latino immigrants, 7th Street's department store row slowly died over several decades.

Starting in the 1960s, city leaders had begun to reconsider downtown. On Bunker Hill, old Victorian mansions had been razed, and a new cultural center — with the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre — erected in their place. To the south, high-rise office buildings began to dot the downtown skyline.

"Downtown Los Angeles really built an entire second downtown through redevelopment in the 1960s and '70s," Bernstein said, "and essentially abandoned its historic core — which laid the seed for the current revival."

Macy's Plaza — known for years as Broadway Plaza before the department store it was named after was sold — was a product of this earlier effort to remake downtown. The shopping center is anchored by Macy's department store and includes other shops and a hotel. 7th & Fig, a block away, was built at the bottom of a skyscraper during the office tower boom of the 1980s. It retains Robinsons-May as its anchor, along with other shops and restaurants.

Joe Ohannessian, 43, opened Multi Camera Photo Lab at 7th & Fig in 1988. The mall thrived for a while, he said, but by 1995, "everybody started closing down." Business, he said, is still poor, and he's thinking of selling.

"Night life is dead," Ohannessian said, adding that the lack of such chain retailers as the Gap made it harder to attract shoppers downtown. "They have to have sidewalk cafes. Things that bring people here." He said he's often asked by shoppers where to buy produce. "There's nothing," he said.

Carol Schatz, head of the Central City Assn., says the current revitalization effort is different from previous attempts because downtown is different. Not only are there more residents, but downtown also has more cultural amenities, notably Disney Hall and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. "What we needed to make this downtown come back — and grow, thrive and stay alive — was a multiuse downtown," she said, "so that you had offices, but now you have sports and entertainment like you didn't before … and creating a critical mass of residences and providing the infrastructure to grow so much more."

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, chairwoman of UCLA's urban planning department and author of "Urban Design Downtown: Poetics and Politics of Form," says downtown's prospects are clearly looking up. But even with more residents and new developments, she says, city planners still must find a way to connect the new developments into a cohesive whole.

"What is missing is a much larger framework. You see isolated monuments which are very self-contained," Loukaitou-Sideris said. "They do not link to one another well…. If we do want to rejuvenate downtown, we need to start from the street network, the alley network."

The Grand Avenue project would include street improvements and a 16-acre park aimed at creating a more pedestrian-oriented feel along the stretch of Grand between the cathedral and the Museum of Contemporary Art. But critics have said the early plans for the retail developments are too focused inward rather than oriented toward the street.

Despite the development boom, some downtown dwellers are skeptical about the prospect of change any time soon. On the second floor of the Grand Tower Apartments, near the outdoor pool shared by residents, Cal State L.A. business professor Steve McGuire, 45, said he probably would not wait for the revitalization project to be finished. He's about to give up on his urban living experiment. McGuire said he felt stranded in downtown Los Angeles. "There's less stuff to do here than you'd think," he said.

He will walk to the nearby Omni Hotel to read and have a drink. But he says the downtown area lacks a thriving nightlife. He finds it difficult to find small ethnic restaurants. And so McGuire is contemplating a move to Pasadena. "I want to be where college people are: jazz clubs, nice bars, restaurants," he said. "What do you have here — Koo Koo Roo?"



:hell: :hell: :brickwall: :brickwall: :hell:

I've said it before, but if you snooze, you lose.

LAB, I hope you & others at the DCBID, & ppl throughout DT, make sure everyone is finally starting to wake up!

[LongBeachUrbanist]

"...by 1995, "everybody started closing down." Business, he said, is still poor, and he's thinking of selling."

In 1995, LA was going through a major recession, still affected by riots. Office space was overbuilt, residential was underbuilt, and the Red Line construction had killed many, many businesses along that stretch.

"you snooze, you lose. "

Right now we're seeing less snoozing Downtown than we have in a long time. So much is changing Downtown, even as we speak. It's important to remember that the current state of things, with "nothing to do Downtown", will be going away very soon.

[cookiejarvis]

As great as it is to have a "blank slate" in that part of Downtown, it's important to remember why this is so. It's because the early CRA went ape-shit in the mid-sixties, tearing down the entire neighborhood on Bunker Hill before they even had anything to put there. Then those parcels sat undeveloped for over 40 years. And because of this over-destruction, the properties on Spring Street lost most of their value, and have sat underused to the present day.


I wish they could move the Victorian buildings from Heritage Square in Highland Park back down to a parcel of land somewhere downtown.

[POLA]

are those buildings actualy from DT?

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Here's a vision of Grand Square (or whatever it'll be called), along with the Downtown Connector subway. I have demolished the County Courthouse and Law Library, but not the County Admin Building.

It's been suggested that the park go over certain streets, to improve park connectiveness. So I've included such connections over Hill, Broadway and Spring Streets. Broadway and Spring could lower into tunnels below the park. However, at Hill the park would have to rise up and go over Hill, since Hill can't be lowered (there's a subway down there!!!). Note the bridged sections would help define the City Hall/Music Center axis.

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/500/7615grand_square.jpg

[BrighamYen]

^ I would demolish the Admin Building too ;)

[LAMetroGuy]

While you're at it can you knock down the entire Music Center

[cookiejarvis]

are those buildings actualy from DT?

I'm not sure where they're from orginally. Even if they placed them in the parking lot areas around Olvera Street would be an improvement from their current exile location.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

^ I would demolish the Admin Building too ;)

Yeah, I know, the County Admin needs to go too. But political and financial reality might keep the County from demolishing both buildings. I'm trying to see how a piecemeal approach might work. IMO, the biggest benefit would come from getting rid of the the County Courthouse.

The corner of First and Grand would truly be a grand corner if the park opened all the way to First. And as a second priority, I'd move the Law Library, rather than the County Seat, so that the park would front First Street along it's entire length.

While you're at it can you knock down the entire Music Center

I'm finishing my time at UC Irvine, that campus was designed by Pereira. He did a bunch of the buildings there too, as well as the Music Center. Believe me, I don't care for his style either. (Although he did the Bradley Theme building at LAX, which I kinda like!)

[POLA]

On the subject of the park, I just hope that it looks closer to Bryant park then pershing square. I want to see grass and shady trees! LA seems to thing that concrete and planter boxes are parks.

[ocman]

On the subject of the park, I just hope that it looks closer to Bryant park then pershing square. I want to see grass and shady trees! LA seems to thing that concrete and planter boxes are parks.


My wish is that they add sunken gardens throughout the park. Something like this which is Butchart gardens in Canada:

http://students.washington.edu/sailing/telltale/wint2001/Butchart.jpg

[citywatch]

LA seems to thing that concrete and planter boxes are parks.
At least when it comes to Pershing Sq, some of the limitations are imposed by having to place everthing above a large underground parking structure.

[LAMetroGuy]

Here is a good article and look at who is at the top of the list... suprise???

http://www.pps.org/upo/info/design/parks_need_turnaround

[citywatch]

We're No 1, we're No 1!!!

But seriously, that's an interesting article, LAMG. However, I wonder how many of the problems of Pershing stem not just from its design but also from many ppl still being nervous about going there & running into aggressive panhandlers & odor-plagued transients in general, if not outright purse or wallet snatchers.

[Wright Concept]

We're No 1, we're No 1!!!

But seriously, that's an interesting article, LAMG. However, I wonder how many of the problems of Pershing stem not just from its design but also from many ppl still being nervous about going there & running into aggressive panhandlers & odor-plagued transients in general, if not outright purse or wallet snatchers.

Actually the way it is designed actually encourages that to happen since the paths themselves are irregular and being able to easily see a point of entry or escape is virtually impossible. There are some corners and nooks on the Hill Street side that if walked in the wrong part of the day pose a serious security threat.

From an access point there shouldn't have had those steps up to the park -or if they were to have steps at all they should double as spots where folks can sit- that should have been a smooth sloped ramp up and they could have done a interesting approach where the grass and sod can grow out of the paving stones at those corner entrances to bring the park to the very edge of the sidewalk, thus encouraging its use.

Plus too much of the Square is TOO programmed. I mean it looks like something HAS to be installed there in order for it to work. Where as the great parks around the world have that element but allows open space to let people be people and let things happen sporadically

[citywatch]

Parts of this article are snotty (esp the last sentence), but it adds to the debate:


London Guardian, May 27, 2005

Los Angeles dispatch
Downtown looks up

Dan Glaister reports on ambitious plans to create a brighter, better and shinier heart of LA

Last week, Los Angeles awoke to find it had a new mayor. This week, it was surprised to discover that it might soon have a new heart. On Monday, plans for a new, revitalised, bigger, better and undoubtedly more shiny downtown were unveiled. Five new skyscrapers will be built, along with a boutique hotel, shops, apartments and offices. Wonder of wonders, a park will be carved out of the void of downtown to create what developers like to refer to as the Los Angeles version of the Champs Elysées. They've talked of it as "our Central Park" too, so at least we know where they're coming from.

The $1.8bn (£0.9bn) project, the developers stress, would be privately funded. One former mayor of the city, Richard Riordan - who gave early backing to the plan - had this to say: "It's a bunch of baloney. It's just rich guys getting richer. I'm one of them." Regrettably, Riordan was joking, but his serious comments were much more palatable to the team of architects (from Chicago) and developers (from New York) behind the plan. "This is what the dream of the city has been about for years," he said, "making something like this happen - getting a true downtown for Los Angeles. This is going to be sensational. Grand Avenue is going to be one of the great avenues of the world."

As it stands, Grand Avenue is not one of the great avenues of the world. Home to Frank Gehry's unremittingly hostile Disney Concert Hall - a chunk of Italian futurist fascism to make Boccioni blush - the dullard Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the more palatable Museum of Contemporary Art, it might correctly be described as the core of the current incarnation of downtown.

Downtown has most of the right ingredients to claim to be the city's heart: City Hall is there, the principal courts are there, the vital organs of municipal authority are all present. Crucially, there is even a lot of parking. But there is something missing - people. Today, there are just 24,604 people living in downtown LA. Current estimates suggest that figure could rise to 48,000 over the next decade. Yet although a recent rash of loft conversions has tempted new dwellers to move downtown, many are finding its wide empty spaces were not what they had in mind when they left the suburbs.

"There's less stuff to do here than you'd think," downtown resident Steve McGuire told the LA Times. "I want to be where college people are: jazz clubs, nice bars, restaurants. What do you have here - Koo Koo Roo?" Mr McGuire, the paper reported, is contemplating a move to Pasadena.

To drive around downtown - and driving is the only way to do it - peering up at the oversized buildings that loom over the six-lane streets is to realise that there really is no such thing as downtown in LA. There is an area of around 200 city blocks, defined by the intersection of two freeways, that was imagined and constructed on the grave of Bunker Hill. Once the site of 19th century houses that were home to the stolid middle classes, from the 20s onwards Bunker Hill attracted transients, derelicts and all manner of undesirables. In short, it became an embarrassment to the emergent city. So, beginning in the early 1960s, it was razed - the original Angels Flight funicular railway, the steep set of steps up which Laurel and Hardy tried in vain to push a piano, and the streets of Victorian houses.

Meanwhile, the area beyond Bunker Hill, a thriving lattice of merchants and movie halls, restaurants and department stores, simply gave up and followed the people to the suburbs. In its place came the origins of the corporate non-place that is downtown today. Which brings us to the current plan, one of several recent attempts to repopulate and reinvigorate downtown (DJ Waldie, writing in the LA Times, noted that downtown is "practically a museum of redevelopment plans gone wrong").

The brainchild of Eli Broad, a developer turned patron of the arts turned big man on the city campus, it is a thoroughly modern attempt to turn back the clock. Model citizens will be tempted by the prospect of a modern home on floor thirtywhatever of the "iconic tower". They will marvel at the profusion of cafes in the secluded courtyards of their developments, crane their necks to catch a glimpse of the powerful leaving City Hall, and wonder how anyone ever lived here before the Ralphs grocery superstore opened (nobody did). And they will frolic on the steppes of the 16-acre park, pausing at - approximately - acre 12 to ascend the newly-constructed footbridge taking them over the traffic below.

That, at least, is the plan. And a fine and worthy plan it is, most probably, embodying all the correct elements of new urbanism: public and private, business and retail, car and subway, celebrity architect (Gehry is, sort of, attached) and visionary developer. It might not succeed in turning Grand Avenue into either the Champs Elysées or one of the great avenues of the world, but it might just make downtown a simulacrum of, say, the Time Warner Center in Manhattan and Millennium Park in Chicago - both, coincidentally, from the offices of the lead architects on the Broad-Grand Avenue plan. And slowly, gradually, Los Angeles would have a downtown, just like any other American city - just like Phoenix, Houston and the rest. Angelenos would lose their anxiety about their city, the place would lose its sense of dislocation, and the residual levels of Prozac in the tap water would fall so far that they would barely register.

In LA, the city that tears down its past without the merest of shudders as it pursues the future, downtown went to the suburbs. Maybe, just maybe, it should be left there.

[deehrler]

On the subject of the park, I just hope that it looks closer to Bryant park then pershing square. I want to see grass and shady trees! LA seems to thing that concrete and planter boxes are parks.


My wish is that they add sunken gardens throughout the park. Something like this which is Butchart gardens in Canada:

http://students.washington.edu/sailing/telltale/wint2001/Butchart.jpg

Boy do I wish for the same. But forget about it. With the homeless problem and the citiy's unwillingness to do anything about it, a flower bed would only serve as a matress.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

A few thoughts:

1) The fact that Pershing Square needs so much programming is a testament to how poorly it's designed. A good park (like Pershing Square in its early years) doesn't need any programming.

2) Pershing Square's design was indeed limited by the parking structure below it. But remember, so was SF's Union Square, whose recent redesign is actually pretty good. Also, the civic mall that's part of the Grand Ave. project will retain its underground parking, so that's another design challenge to consider.

3) Much of PSq's problem is that it incorporates too many useless things. There's landscaping but no lawn. There's a clock tower but no clock. There are trellis/bridge-looking structures that do nothing but block views. This stems from the concept, popular during that time, that parks had to be like "rooms", completely cut off from their surroundings, filled with clever conceptual art pieces. The "room" metaphor was very popular at the time.

The reality is, you need a balance. You need a little separation, but you also need to feel connected to the city space. And you need to avoid invisible corners. This is why the best parks throughout the world are flat and simply designed, with lots of trees and at most a partial fence. A park shouldn't look like my abelita's living room, with clashing colors and textures splashed all over the place. It should look, feel and function like a park. Is this too much to ask?!?!?!?

And yes, the homeless problem is a real issue, but it seems like PSq's designers thought that meant you had to repel everyone to keep the park homeless-free. Which of course didn't work. The only way you're going to keep the homeless from taking over a park is by keeping a cop on that beat. This is the case for our streets as well. Duh!!! :brickwall: :brickwall: :brickwall: :brickwall:

[BrighamYen]

^ I am trying to find someone who is willing to DONATE money to remodel PSQ. That's my next lifetime goal!

[LongBeachUrbanist]

BTW, I've noticed the comparisons of the Grand Avenue project to the Champs-Elysees and Barcelona's Ramblas have faded, and now the project is being compared to Rockefeller Center and Bryant Park.

These new comparisons, even if imperfect, are much more appropriate. What we're talking about creating is an American-style mixed-use urban center, a campus of towers and cultural attractions in the middle of a major Downtown. And the park, hopefully, will work as well with Angelenos and its surroundings as Bryant Park does with the NY Public Library and 42nd Street.

I just think it gives a more realistic bulls-eye to aim for. It also suggests the types of things that can work in a modern urban setting.

If the Grand Avenue Project were to become as well-known and beloved an icon as Rockefeller Center is, that would be pretty awesome.

Suggested names for the project (and it's surroundings): Angeles Center, Angeles Square, Broad Center, California Center, Zanja Place, First Grand Plaza, Angeles Park.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-grand31may31,0,2535474.story?coll=la-news-comment-letters

LETTERS TO THE TIMES
A Grand Vision for Downtown L.A.

May 31, 2005

D.J. Waldie correctly assesses the state of mind of a vast number of Angelenos ("A Man. A Plan. Now What?" Commentary, May 26). We are neglectful about Los Angeles' future. But thank God for Eli Broad, who cares enough to put his money where his dreams are in building a more glorious L.A. His willfulness in the planning process has aided the city in the same way the upper class in Italy patronized the art that sparked the Renaissance — and a renaissance is what downtown L.A. needs.

Lora Victorio

Studio City

*

Re "Grand Plan Approved to Give L.A. a Heart," May 24: While I was initially thrilled to see the new plans for downtown, I could see, once again, that the plans appear to have incorporated the already existing recipe for failure that keeps downtown from being what it should be. Simply put, the focus should not be on the buildings, it should be on the street. Buildings can be wonderful, as Disney Hall demonstrates. But what makes a city is its streets. And downtown L.A. continues its suicidal belief that streets are for cars, not pedestrians.

The areas of Southern California that have real street life are the ones that are the most exciting: Old Town Pasadena; West Hollywood along Santa Monica Boulevard; Santa Monica itself. And, of course, that example much closer to home: Broadway. Look how the businesses on Broadway, along with the wide sidewalks, are full of people day and even night. Compare that to the buildings up on Bunker Hill, which show to the street only walls.

Whatever promise the new buildings or the park may hold, downtown will not solve its problems until it figures out what every other major city in the world has known for years — and what L.A. used to know quite well, as evidenced by Broadway: that wonderful, colorful streets filled with people make cities great.

David Link

Sacramento

*

I am absolutely in favor of the Grand Avenue development and all other improvements and innovations to the long-forsaken downtown region, and I applaud the efforts of developers and urban planners to re-create our urban core. However, as a Westsider I recognize how difficult it is to access downtown via the freeway system, making downtown a place to avoid if at all possible. Good freeway and rail connections are vital for this downtown effort to work.

Further, as a rail/transit advocate, I am saddened that the critical rail link, referred to as the downtown connector, isn't being as highly profiled as other parts of the project. This publicly funded light-rail link would connect Bunker Hill to Union Station. The current Gold and Blue lines will need seamless connections to each other, the future Exposition Line and to the Red Line subway, and the downtown connector will do just that.

Should this vital infrastructure not be built, then downtown with all its new development will certainly continue to be a location to be avoided.

Kenneth S. Alpern

Los Angeles

[Wright Concept]

Los Angeles Daily News
'A bunch of baloney'
Is Grand Avenue plan good for L.A.'s neighborhoods?

Wednesday, June 01, 2005 - Asked to give his real feelings about the $1.8 billion plan to revitalize Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles, former Mayor Richard Riordan told one of those jokes that are funny because they contain an otherwise unspoken truth:

"Oh, it's a bunch of baloney," Riordan said. 'It's just rich guys getting richer. I'm one of them."

Ha-ha. Riordan is known for his impolitic wit, as well as for saying what no one else can. But with this jest, he hit upon a concern held by many in Los Angeles, with the notable exception of the rich guys like Riordan who have put this plan together:

Is this a good deal for the public in general and the city as a whole?

Sure, the developers love it; they will cash in. The unions love it; they get the work. The politicians and the billionaire power brokers love it, too; they get a permanent monument to their egos.

But what about the rest of us in the neglected neighborhoods?

We are promised a booming, vibrant hub for Southern California -- which is great, but hardly ranks among the top priorities of Angelenos who are more concerned with the lack of police, the crumbling roads, the failing schools, the unbearable traffic and the flight of well-paying jobs.

A fancy downtown might be a nice place to visit once or twice a year, but how will a $1.8 billion grandiose Grand Avenue complex solve any of the city's real problems?

When do the big shots get around to coming up with plans and investment schemes to attract good businesses to locate in the northeast San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles?

We are told that this project will come at little or no expense to the taxpayers, but that promise is transparent. Local government will have to pay for a parking garage, which will be repaired through future tax revenues -- revenues that would otherwise go into the public treasury, paying for things like cops and roads. Meanwhile, the city will likely need to shift services from L.A.'s neighborhoods to its new core.

All of which makes Riordan's joke strike awfully close to home.

No one objects to the idea of a glimmering downtown, or even to rich guys getting richer. But L.A. was built as a city of neighborhoods, and for all the effort put into downtown, it would be nice to see neighborhoods get a little something besides the bill.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

I HATE THE DAILY NEWS!!! im sick of thier one sided views (obviously all pro valley). This project is all private money, yet they still try to spin it a to why its not being invested in the Valley. Newsflash, the developers know that there is no where in the valley worthy of such a project. where would they build something like this, on ventura? ya right, the nimby would kill it and make it a 3 story two building porject and then they would complain because its not Grand.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

If the outer parts of the county don't want this project, I hope they don't mind if Downtown just pockets the expected hundreds of thousands of tax dollars that this project will generate. And I hope they don't come Downtown looking to work at the businesses that this development creates.

No one objects to the idea of a glimmering downtown, or even to rich guys getting richer.

Apparently the Daily News does, or they wouldn't even bring it up.

But L.A. was built as a city of neighborhoods, and for all the effort put into downtown, it would be nice to see neighborhoods get a little something besides the bill.

Hahahaha!!! Why the hell would any developer pour $1.8 billion into any development in the suburbs? And if they tried they'd be met by fierce NIMBY opposition at every turn!

And how are the "neighborhoods" getting the bill??? And what about Downtown's many neighborhoods? Is there a problem with Downtown's many taxpayers seeing some investment in their area?

Neighborhoods, heal thyself. That's what Downtown LA is doing.

[colemonkee]

Another thing this guy fails to notice or mention is that the Grand Avenue project will generate millions of dollars per year in tax revenue, which will go into the general fund, some of which goes into the Valley. Sometime people are so short-sighted, they short-change themselves.

[citywatch]

hardly ranks among the top priorities of Angelenos who are more concerned with the lack of police, the crumbling roads, the failing schools, the unbearable traffic and the flight of well-paying jobs.

Oh, it's not a priority to make our hoods less of a dive?? Less of an armpit where many ppl will say: which way to the nearest shiny new burb? Get me the hell out of here!!!

[ocman]

Can they just stop it? Most of the development is privately funded.
This is just like the hoopla over Disney Hall. The city just donates a parking lot, and everyone screams as if it was the CITY that spent 275 million.

[LAMetroGuy]

Very true! And honestly, making the case that the 1.8 billion dollars that are being spent on this project could be better spent on the northeast San Fernando Valley and South Los Angeles is just crazy. First, "investors/developers" aren't in the business of fixing city problems. These guys develop projects to make $$$. Its crazy to think that these investors/developers would just give money to the city to improve the ills of the city which have accrued over time.

Why doesn't Richard Riordan think of the positive attributes if having investors and developers build one, two or three billion dollar projects? Tax revenues of these project could potentially fund such projects to fix problems in other LA districts. In addition, as one neighborhood improves, so do the surrounding hoods, which increases property values which increases property tax revenues, etc. C'mon... this guy is just on his soap box and trying to stir the pot.

[citywatch]

Why doesn't Richard Riordan think of the positive attributes
Riordan, as the DN writer acknowledges, was just joking about "rich guys" & "baloney", prob because the former mayor realizes the importance of the Grand Ave proj goes without saying. Sort of like if he were asked about the importance of teaching your kids the 3 R's & learning to look both ways when crossing a busy street, & joking about how those things were important mainly because parents should want to see their kids grow up & make enough $$ so they can support the parents in their retirement yrs.

However, applying that metaphor to LA, I think the DN writer really is so damn cynical & shortsighted that he believes the only reason the Grand Ave proj is being promoted is so the parent (ie DT) will, somehow, someway, get $$ out of the kids (ie the valley). But then that same writer will turn around & bitch when the kids (ie the valley) has to somehow take care of the parent (ie DT) if or when it becomes too sickly & poor.

IOW, damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

This is just like the hoopla over Disney Hall. The city just donates a parking lot, and everyone screams as if it was the CITY that spent 275 million.
(Actually, I understand the County-built parking lot was a pretty bad deal. The construction costs got so high, that in the end it cost ~$80,000 per parking space. :rant: )

[DaveofCali]

^ I am trying to find someone who is willing to DONATE money to remodel PSQ. That's my next lifetime goal!

Pershing Square was better off when it was originally like this:

http://www.publicartinla.com/Downtown/figueroa/Pershing_Square_History/pershing_whit3.jpeg

http://www.publicartinla.com/Downtown/figueroa/Pershing_Square_History/pershing_whit4.jpeg

[citywatch]

In the top photo, the one that shows the fountain, I know the bldg to the left is going to be converted into condos (or apts), & I believe the bldg way off to the right side (right of the large palm tree) has been switched over to apts/condos just within the past several months (the Barry bldg).

That landscaping prob still would be there if the city hadn't created the underground parking garage.

[DJM19]

looks like LA had some double decker busses back in the day

[ThreeHundred]

In the top photo, the one that shows the fountain, I know the bldg to the left is going to be converted into condos (or apts), & I believe the bldg way off to the right side (right of the large palm tree) has been switched over to apts/condos just within the past several months (the Barry bldg).

That landscaping prob still would be there if the city hadn't created the underground parking garage.

That building is the Eastern Columbia Building. The one on the left I mean.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

^ The Eastern Columbia building is at 9th and Broadway, not 5th and Hill.

The building shown is the Title Guarantee Building. It's 74 apartment lofts will be available early next year.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Heart Is Important, But Don't Forget Soul
by Sam Hall Kaplan

If one cares about Downtown Los Angeles, or about Southern California at long last having an engaging focal point for its civic and cultural conceits, you have to be concerned as I am about the master plan for Grand Avenue.

As approved recently in an effusion of self congratulations by the Los Angeles Grand Avenue Authority, and hailed by past, present and future mayors and their majordomos, the estimated $1.8 billion plan by New York-based Related Companies was described correctly as a vital piece of the puzzle to the evolving development of Downtown.

It certainly is appropriately ambitious, calling for the redevelopment of the now moribund 16-acre civic mall between the Music Center and City Hall, and the development of nine acres adjacent to the Walt Disney Concert Hall for a mega mix of 2,600 residential units, a 275-room boutique hotel, and 400,000 square feet of retail space, with presumably the usual range of commercial diversions. In all, five new skyscrapers would rise.

The density proposed by the Related Companies augurs well for a critical mass needed to breathe life into a development that now floats in an expanse of mostly parking lots atop Bunker Hill. Indeed, if anything, more housing and perhaps less parking is required: In my opinion, the success of Grand Avenue lies in being much more than an occasional diversion for a wistful Westsider, a wayward county employee on an extended lunch, or a wandering tourist.

Welcome as they and their disposable income may be, the future of Grand Avenue will be made, or broken, by the growing cadre of Downtown residents - the people who live there or nearby.

To aid this hoped-for success, the development needs as many residents as it can accommodate, and must also reach out and somehow better engage the disparate districts of Downtown. This was clearly stated as a desired goal of the master plan by Bill Witte of Related. It was also mentioned at several public forums sponsored by the Grand Avenue Committee, which under Managing Director Martha Welborne has nurtured the project from its shaky beginnings.

What must be avoided is the massing and meandering mode of a self contained and satisfied lifestyle mall, a concern made quite clear in the criticism of the plan by Robert Harris, the former dean of the USC School of Architecture and former chairman of the city's Downtown Strategic Plan advisory committee.

Also worrisome was the focus at a May 23 press conference of the Grand Avenue Committee's influential chair, Eli Broad, who touted the plan's potential to lend an iconic form to the city's international posture. This was subsequently parroted by the Los Angeles Times and its transient commentators in appeals for a celebrity architect and a visionary design.

While one can appreciate the public relations value of such an architectural icon - think Disney Hall - the test of Grand Avenue's design frankly will not be how it is viewed by a fleeting public and a fickle media, but whether it first and foremost will serve Downtown. If anything distinguishes memorable designs, it is that they are accessible and user friendly.

To be sure, this is not just about Downtown. If Southern California's increasing population persists, as most experts predict, the resulting growth will have to be better planned (or we risk our environment continuing to degenerate into an unsavory soup of tangled traffic and sprawling suburbs). Critical to that planning effort is an accommodating Central City.

Naysayers and abstruse authors aside, there are other compelling reasons why Southern California needs a vibrant Downtown: While it is true that the old commercial and industrial economic model of a metropolis died in the advent of the age of cyberspace, and the satellite city, a downtown is needed if only as the nexus of an attractive alternative lifestyle to suburbia and beyond.

There is something energizing about the convergence of crowds, be it to attend a sports, entertainment or cultural event, or just to shop, dine or promenade. It is the essence of civilization; cities are where things happen.

There was a lot of talk at the recent press conference of a revitalized and redeveloped Grand Avenue providing the city with a heart. I'm actually hoping for something more amorphous - a soul.

As for discovering this soul, I'm convinced that it can be found not in the skewing and twisting of structures, and the shaping and misshaping of skylines, but in the spaces between the buildings and on the adjoining streets, where people gather.

However well intentioned and talented, too much of the design of Grand Avenue to date appears to have been done from distances and sitting at computers. It is time to hit the streets, and to explore what will make this needed project special to L.A.

Kaplan is the author of L.A. Lost and Found. He is the former design critic for the Los Angeles Times and a former Emmy Award-winning reported for FOX 11.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

"new edition for Prospect Hill"
by John Crandell
posted on groups.yahoo.com/group/newdowntown/

Sam Hall Kaplan speaks of soul as being the key to success for the Grand Avenue project, but he offers not a whit, no idea as to how to explore or engender soul in such a location as the local hilltop lobotomized near half a century ago. But, packing in as much residential use as is possible as he mentions in the new 'D.T. News' is important. No doubt though, they'll blow it big time by revamping the civic center mall while ignoring, leaving the county courts and the county hall of administration in place. Foolish that.

Late this afternoon, a few of us environmental types gathered together here for our weekly happy hour, far to the north of L.A. Yes, Friday wine and cheese. The discussion turned to L.A. and it's luminous hall atop Bunker Hill. Someone pointed up the 1981 movie 'Excalibur', said that she feels as though Frank Gehry must have been inspired by that film. Wouldn't it be amazing if an urban void or gathering space (outdoor), could engender a similar response as the hall has brought to the city? I remember once reading that upon first arriving in L.A. from Canada, Gehry and his parents (siblings, I don't know) took up residence in a rooming house nearby on Wall Street. He must feel some sort of connection to Downtown with that.

To include an integrated art element in the Grand Avenue scheme won't go near far enough on a hillside/summit grided off so long a go and torn asunder with blockheaded Miesian intents in the 1950s. Where could a contemporary Bernini or Michelangelo be found? Novel architectural form need not be the sole prescription in propagating a city's identity. The void is the larger key.

So it is high time to cease all of the puff-mongering about an axial park space between the county buildings and begin to graple with the those damned buildings instead. And supervisor Molina is right on the money on that point. We should replace the existing buldings with AT LEAST four new footprints.

But as far as the latent soul of the place is concerned, I'd first ask as to how might the current obsession with 'memory' be translated or applied to a disregarded place such as early Los Angeles? By what method could something so invisible, abstract and forgotten become palpable? I would posit that a quasi-archaeologic sensibility is in order, that a place-oriented cartographic sifting of key terrain tying history to place is required. That in such a city with so little identity, there must be a primary effort at examining the extrinsic context of the urban past, under a more perceptive awareness of quotidian habitation.

How could such an indescribable place as L.A. at long last begin to find itself? Between circumstance and aspiration: arouse the emotions! Kindle a wonderment, a sensibility once expressed by James Agee as a keening for all those who "had ever breathed, had ever dreamed, had ever been" - at this one central place.

[ocman]

^ I am trying to find someone who is willing to DONATE money to remodel PSQ. That's my next lifetime goal!

Pershing Square was better off when it was originally like this:

[
[i]

It's gorgeous. Today, it's absolutely barren. It looks like something in an office park.

[ocman]

Sci-Arc on Grand Ave???? Also check out the part about the Academy Film Museum.

http://www.calendarlive.com/architecture/cl-et-sciarc10jun10,0,4014967.story?coll=cl-home-more-channels


Sci-Arc problem has a solution
*Officials could dedicate a publicly owned parcel in the Grand Avenue plan for the architecture institute's campus.


By Christopher Hawthorne, Times Staff Writer

Over the last few weeks, two seemingly unrelated architectural dramas have been playing out in downtown Los Angeles.

Inside Department 18 of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, or Sci-Arc, has been fighting a nasty legal battle over the fate of its single-building campus on the eastern edge of downtown. A decision in the case is expected shortly, perhaps as early as today; a victory for Sci-Arc, allowing it to buy the renovated rail depot it's been leasing for five years, appears unlikely.

ADVERTISEMENT
Meanwhile, along Grand Avenue, New York-based developer Related Cos. has been working to flesh out and win final approval for a plan to build two huge mixed-use commercial parcels to accompany a 16-acre park. The $1.8-billion project doesn't include a single educational or cultural component or, at least so far, any prominent local architects to complement its roster of established and largely risk-averse firms from Chicago, Boston and New York. Without a change of architectural course, its commercial sections may provide little more than a shiny, joyless parade of high-end chain stores.

Remarkably, there's an attractively simple solution to Sci-Arc's real estate woes and the Related plan's essential conservatism that no one has suggested: Dedicate one of the publicly owned parcels in the new Grand Avenue development for a new, free-standing Sci-Arc campus building, and give the job of designing it to an emerging, experimentally minded architecture firm based in Los Angeles.

In a single stroke, the gesture would give Sci-Arc the permanent home it has been seeking downtown and offer an early sign of reassurance that Related is committed to more than the bottom line. It would bring to the heart of the new development hundreds of architecture students, not to mention audiences for evening lectures, exhibitions and other Sci-Arc events that are open to the public.

More than that, the move would provide the youthful and architectural energy that the project is now lacking.

Sci-Arc's 450 students and 80 faculty members, once in place, could help transform the development from within. Their presence could help attract a diverse mixture of retail outlets as well as, in time, residents who might not otherwise consider living there.

Adding to the crowds now drawn to the Music Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art and other venues, the school could help push this part of downtown toward a critical mass of culture.

Ideally, the architecture of Sci-Arc's new building would match the school's reputation for risk-taking and innovation, challenging the firms working on the large surrounding buildings to match its verve. There is certainly no shortage of qualified young Los Angeles architects to design it. If it were exceptionally successful, it could offer a generational counterpoint to Walt Disney Concert Hall and the nearby Caltrans District 7 Headquarters, projects designed, respectively, by two deans of Southern California architecture, 76-year-old Frank Gehry and 61-year-old Thom Mayne.

Finally, the move would suggest that City Councilwoman Jan Perry, county Supervisor Gloria Molina, philanthropist Eli Broad and other leaders of the Grand Avenue Authority and its associated planning committee, who are overseeing the project, are taking creative, even unorthodox steps to ensure its vitality.

In such a scenario, land would be donated by the city's Community Redevelopment Agency or by Los Angeles County, depending on which parcel the school occupied. Paying for the new building would be Sci-Arc's responsibility, though with the prestige of a high-profile new site — and even the mere rhetorical support of Broad and others — the school's prospects for fundraising should be considerably brighter than they've been in its current location. A sizable gift from Related could get the campaign going.

There are several possible locations for a new Sci-Arc. The school could take up residence in the parcel of land south of Disney Hall, most of which is owned by the CRA — say, along Hope Street. But it would be better if planners included it in the first phase of construction, which will occur in a parcel down the hill from Disney Hall that is bounded by 1st, 2nd, Grand and Hill and is owned by the county. Doing so could put Sci-Arc on a relatively fast track to a new home.

The cost would almost surely be higher than the $12.8 million Sci-Arc was ready to spend to buy its present home. Two to three times that figure might be a reasonable preliminary estimate.

This solution wouldn't be a cure-all. It would leave a vacuum in the neighborhood where Sci-Arc is now located, on East 3rd Street near the L.A. River, which with a boost from the school has been slowly coming to life. Any plan to bring Sci-Arc up the hill should include commitments from the city that it will encourage new buildings around its old campus that respect the low-rise scale and the gritty character of that area.

What's more, simply picking up Sci-Arc's campus and depositing it in the middle of a high-end commercial development won't work. Imagine an architecture school inside the Time Warner Center in Manhattan, another Related project — it would be a terrible fit. Related and its lead architects, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and Elkus/Manfredi, would need to adjust their plan to acknowledge that the needs of a small, experimental arts school are different from those of a department store or a high-rise condominium tower.

But that very shift could enliven the project in predictable as well as serendipitous ways. And it would give Sci-Arc, whose leaders, whatever their real estate blunders, have shown a commitment to staying downtown, a chance for some genuine stability. Its students deserve at least that much. So does the city, for which Sci-Arc remains a valuable cultural asset.

Such stability seems unlikely for the school even if it manages a victory in court. If its legal adversaries push ahead with plans to nearly encircle the campus with aggressive development, staying put could become increasingly uncomfortable for Sci-Arc in the years ahead, if not altogether untenable.

Related, for its part, has been keen to add culture to its Grand Avenue scheme. It spent recent months in ultimately failed negotiations with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which was interested in building a new film museum across the street from Disney Hall. The proposed site covered 200,000 square feet of high-visibility space at the development's so-called 100 Percent Corner, in the lower floors of a tower at 1st Street and Grand Avenue.

Sci-Arc, though, would require neither a glamorous location nor a luxurious amount of space, and frankly would add more life than a movie museum's collection of interactive, family-friendly kiosks exploring the work of Billy Crystal. Its current campus covers about 90,000 square feet, and it's not unreasonable to imagine the school working comfortably within a smartly designed new building that is even smaller.

Indeed, the school might flourish in a portion of the development that Related would otherwise have trouble leasing. Sci-Arc has long celebrated and helped promote an approach to architecture — best exemplified by Mayne, who helped found the school, Gehry and others — that stresses the opportunities, even the appeal, of tight budgets, complicated urban sites and workaday materials.

Here is a chance to put those priorities into place — to make the school's new home not just the most modestly priced and unlikely piece of architecture on the site but also the most appealing.

[Bernd]

Sci-Arc on Grand is a nice idea, but unless it's being proposed by Related, I doubt it's something we'll see.

[DJM19]

experimental company? ugh! Lets have a company that really knows what they are doing design all parts of this 2 billion dollar project. Experiments ussually end badly.

[ocman]

It's a shame about the film museum. That, singularly, could be the draw that Grand needs to bring tourists into discovering downtown. If the museum ever does come into reality, I can only imagine it surpassing the Getty as the most visited cultural draw in LA. And the way the Getty is being run nowadays, that probably isn't too hard.

[DJM19]

I wonder if this means the museum will be in hollywood...probably.

[BrighamYen]

^ Yup, that's what an article about it said awhile ago. After reading the article (this was many many months ago), I brought it up at the last focus group meeting for the Grand Avenue Project (I was the only one who did btw).

Anyway, I know the director of the Grand Avenue Committee personally, and she told me that the Academy wasn't interested many months ago. (I saw her at a function in Downtown LA) So apparently, the Academy didn't have to contemplate too long! Well, it's quite alright by me. Hollywood is an exciting district in LA and with the Redline connecting it with Downtown, I feel the two can only help each other out.

[sbocguy]

Here's the DT News' take on Related's plan... this pretty much sums up my opinion, and I'm sure a lot of people's on this forum...

http://www.downtownnews.com/articles/2005/06/13/news/opinion/edit03.txt

Los Angeles Downtown News 13 June 2005

Editorial

A Grand Grand Only Gets Harder

It is rare that a person, an institution or a community gets a second chance to correct a major mistake. Right now, Downtown Los Angeles has one of the biggest second chances in its history. It centers around Grand Avenue, that large stretch of missed opportunities and under-realized expectations just east of Disney Hall. Some great steps have been taken on other parts of Bunker Hill, and more work needs to be done. Those who are shaping the thoroughfare and the land adjacent to it must not stop before they reach a better Grand Avenue solution than the one they offered last month.

Eli Broad, the businessman and philanthropist, should be commended for keeping Grand Avenue on the front burner for years. Without his strong will - and, yes, the frequent and necessary arm twisting - a renaissance for the street would not be within sight. Also worthy of praise of a different sort is the Related Companies, the New York-based entity that has developed the $1.8 billion plan to create a neighborhood. Related has made a notable effort to hear community concerns by holding a number of public discussions. There is consensus on one point: Everyone wants the highest and best use of the large expanse of Bunker Hill acreage available. Unfortunately, the current plans do not reach that lofty goal.

Related's vision includes five towers, hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail and, separately, across the street and half a block away, a vast public park connecting the Music Center to City Hall. The park is not a problem, at least not yet, but there are urgent concerns over how the new structures will interact with the streets.

Grand Avenue cannot be allowed an insular design, one that does not usher thousands onto the street itself. There is an opportunity here with far reaching ramifications. The new development could and should elevate a broader neighborhood of the many blocks beyond its own boundaries, not just create a "self contained and satisfied lifestyle" island in the middle of a city, to quote architecture critic Sam Hall Kaplan.

These planners and developers must think principally about people walking on Grand and Hope and Olive and First and Fifth and everywhere else - and loving it. That kind of life is the trend of the future, and if they keep the current plan, they will miss the market, as well as the point. The cafes, the street-front shops and the sidewalks are going to be more important to the street's success than the oft-mentioned 50-story "iconic tower." Not that there is any reason they can't have both.

Yes, Related and its investors need to make a buck. We hope they do. But Grand can and should live up to its name. Right now Related/Broad/et al. have laid the groundwork to capitalize on this elusive second chance, to help the street make up for such mis-steps as the pedestrian-thwarting "fortress" architecture of the Music Center. Those crafting the street must learn from the mistakes of the past and remember that it is people, rather than buildings, that will make Grand Avenue a neighborhood and an integral part of Bunker Hill. Upcoming local government approval processes must demand no less than a truly grand Grand.

[DJM19]

LAB should get on these related people's asses and tell them to make grand not so inward focused. And make the buildings meet the street! Is that really too much to ask? Is it some inpossible task?

Oh yes, I also agree that LA and hollwood should make every connection possible in order to help each other. DT and hollywood should flow together.

[BrighamYen]

^^Sounds similar to what I wrote about a year ago (my letter to Gloria Molina and the Grand Avenue Committee) when I was lobbying to get the County Buildings torn down.

[BrighamYen]

LOS ANGELES GRAND AVENUE PROJECT


The following is my letter to the Los Angeles First District Supervisor, Gloria Molina, concerning what I and many others feel, will be a dire problem for the Grand Avenue of tomorrow if we do not address this before the final development plans are established.



Dear Gloria Molina,


After reviewing the plans for the Grand Avenue project, it has come to my attention and civic concern that one significant issue, that is not being fully addressed, will almost certainly continue to circumscribe the area's potential vitality planned for Grand Avenue: the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration and Courthouse buildings.

City and urban planners, through empirical research, have come up with "rules" that a park should follow in order to become successful by connecting people together and truly creating the community that a world-class city like Los Angeles needs. It is truistic to mention, however, cities like San Francisco and New York have successfully created wonderful parks (Golden Gate Park, Central Park, etc.) that have become centers of vibrant activity. Their dedication to provide these meeting grounds not only aids in connecting the people together, but also promotes a kind of civic pride few in Los Angeles truly feel today due to a lack of strong identification with the city. A feeling of being "disconnected." The suburbanization and dependency on the automobile have led to the endless sprawl that has slowly eaten away at the very fabric of social connection which holds a city together. The need for a strong central core must be the next phase of Los Angeles' long-range development plans. Perhaps we (the people of our great city of Los Angeles) should invest more thought and heart into this "master project" along an infamous avenue that has failed time and again to become "the Champs" of LA since the last Victorian home was demolished on Bunker Hill. Let us plan without forgetting our past mistakes and let us not repeat them again. This is our last chance to get it right.

Taken from the Project for Public Spaces a park must fulfill these 4 rules to be truly considered a "Great Park."

1) Activity and Uses

"What types of activities make parks community magnets? When a park provides a place for people to ice skate and also an area nearby where people can sit and talk, get warm and get something to eat or drink, its chances of becoming a good place are increased, simply because there are numerous things to do, attracting many different people. A good place should be regularly available so that people can rely on it when the chatting whim strikes. The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg identifies neighborhood spots that act as the glue of their communities, drawing people to them for companionship and relaxation. Examples might be a neighborhood bocce court in a park, a corner bar, a coffeehouse or a playground -- all are places characterized by popular informality. Their users can anticipate lively conversations with the 'regulars,' 'characters,' and other neighbors. According to Oldenburg, in good places every person is known for their social self, not as an employee or family member -- roles, he says, that can make people feel like they are in straightjackets from which they long to escape. A good place also encourages people to 'sit and set a spell.' Being able to sit, converse or just look at passersby is key."

2) Comfort and Image


"Good details can tantalize -- they signal that someone took the time and energy to design amenities that welcome, intrigue, or help. City Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village by planner/developer David Sucher and People Places: Design Guidelines for Urban Open Spaces, edited by Clare Cooper Marcus and Carolyn Francis, are packed with thoughtful design ideas including community bulletin boards, restrooms, shade trees, child-friendly niches and bike racks. Author and urbanologist William Whyte talks about the importance of movable seating in his book, City: Rediscovering the Center. Today two thousand movable chairs are scattered on the lawn of Bryant Park in New York, transforming the park from a drug infested public space to a popular mid-town haven."

3) ACCESS AND LINKAGE (!)

"A good place is easy to see and easy to get to -- people want to see that there is something to do, that others have been successfully enticed to enter. On the other hand, if a park is not visible from the street or the street is too dangerous for older people and children to cross, the park won't be used. The more successful a place is, the more the success will feed upon itself. Sometimes, if a place is really good, people will walk through it even if they were headed somewhere else. Tony Hiss' book, The Experience of Place explores how people look ahead to orient themselves: "We let the layout of a place give us an advance reading on such things as whether we can linger there or need to keep on moving" -- if your visual signals are blocked you won't proceed."

4) Sociability

"A sociable place is one where people want to go to observe the passing scene, meet friends, and celebrate interaction with a wide range of people that are different from themselves. Have you ever noticed how many enjoyable conversations you can have at a farmers' market or a flea market? Psychologist Robert Sommer's research says that people tend to have four and a half times more sociable talks with people in a market versus a supermarket. How can the builders and managers of today's parks learn more from other places such as markets about where and how social activity occurs?"


Rule #3 (Access and Linkage) is why the civic park planned for Grand Avenue will fail to become the "new Central Park" of Los Angeles. The reason is because the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration Building and the Courthouse are both monolithic structures (and quite popularly agreed upon by the public as "eye-sores") that block at least 60% of access to the park! In addition, they provide no entertainment or social relevance to Grand Avenue. It does not take a city planner to predict that those two imposing structures on both sides of the park will prevent many people on the street from entering it. Mainly because the two buildings would literally force entrance and exit from the park to only two sides of the rectangular park creating an inconvenience many pedestrians would avoid.

Furthermore, the structures that would be constructed on parcels Q and W-2 (Map: http://www.grandavenuecommittee.com/plan.html) will benefit little (if at all) from the proposed "civic" park because the people who dwell/eat/work inside cannot walk easily and directly across the street to the park (heading north) because the fortress-like Courthouse stands firmly between them. Pedestrians on the street will also have a hard time (rather impossible) seeing any activity going on inside the park, further diminishing the "civic" park's potential to attract people and becoming the city's "new central park." "A good place is easy to see and easy to get to -- people want to see that there is something to do, that others have been successfully enticed to enter. On the other hand, if a park is not visible from the street...the park won't be used." This idea of an unused park cannot be more true of the current park that sits between the Hahn Building and the Courthouse because most people in Los Angeles (and in Downtown for that matter!) have no idea that this park even exists! Why? Because it's pretty much hidden behind concrete.

The solution to this potentially dire problem for the new Grand Avenue is to completely dismantle the two badly aged buildings: the Hahn Building and the Courthouse. The resulting cleared land can then be seamlessly added to the original park creating an aesthetically pleasing environment and a socially conducive area for all to enjoy. Not only does this add more needed space to a relatively small park of only 16-acres (Central Park, New York is 843 acres), but it will truly be the heart of Grand Avenue as it will essentially socially and visually connect The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the Music Center, Disney Hall, the new developments yet to be constructed on parcels Q and W-2, and our beloved City Hall. The rest of the entire region will also benefit through a "ripple effect" because of the social and visual power created by connecting such important venues establishing a world-class culture mecca.

This idea of connectivity and linkage should sound familiar to those involved with the Grand Avenue project. It was because of the connectivity and linkage of all the cultural venues (from The Cathedral down to the MOCA and even the Central Library) along Grand Avenue that recently evoked such optimism for the future of Grand Avenue. As more cultural venues were added, such as the Cathedral and Disney Hall, so did the appeal and importance of Grand Avenue. That same concept of connectivity and linkage will need to be applied to the park and the important venues that surround it (and I'm not referring to the Hahn Administration Building or the Courthouse either, which have no relevance to the grand scheme of Grand Avenue promoting sociability). The more you connect, the more appealing and powerful the area becomes. Not only will dismantling the Hahn Building and the Courthouse make the proposed park truly great, but it will be the action needed to connect (both visually and for pedestrians' easy access) parcels Q and W-2 to the Cathedral as well as the Music Center and vice versa. Combining these forces together will undoubtedly be more effective than separating them.

I implore you, as the First District Supervisor and Grand Avenue Authority member, on behalf of all Angelenos who passionately hope the Grand Avenue Project succeeds, to earnestly consider the supported approval of dismantling the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration Building and the Courthouse to make way for a truly wonderful and integrated cultural mecca. I was advised by managing director of the Grand Avenue Committee, Martha Welbourne, at a recent symposium to raise this issue early on because there is a possibility that the services provided in these two buildings can be relocated and incorporated into the new Grand Avenue plan. The success of Grand Avenue will add significant momentum to the burgeoning Los Angeles Central Core (Downtown) development, which can help develop the civic pride many Angelenos lack today. Bunker Hill's history has been far from the success visionaries had hoped for--mainly because it lacked effective social and visual linkages. Let us all plan wisely and not repeat the same mistake again. Downtown deserves a great civic park and should not be neglected any longer.


Sincerely,

Brigham Yen


















More to read...

Los Angeles has a lot to work on to stay afloat. In order to truly establish itself as a world player in the future (as other cities in Asia and Mexico assert themselves on the world stage), Los Angeles will need to develop an undoubtedly strong central core, being Downtown, to compete effectively for business as well as providing easy accessibility. And in Downtown, Grand Avenue is one of the main foundations that needs to be built to bring civic life and pride back into the core and entire metropolitan area. And in Grand Avenue, the proposed civic park will have to be successful to link the community together socially and visually. And that means we have to demolish the Hahn Administration Building and the Courthouse in order to link such an important cultural area together. I don't think anyone can dissent from this idea, unless they WANT Downtown Los Angeles to fail! I think demolishing those two monolithic eye-sores to help successfully create one of the main foundations of Downtown is a small sacrifice to pay and will only help reverse the trend of suburbanization by bringing life back into Downtown and reasserting Los Angeles' world-class status.



See how those two buildings (marked with X) can be potentially devastating to the area, both socially and visually?

http://img299.echo.cx/img299/2523/untitled4ea.png (http://www.imageshack.us)
-The flow is obstructed: For example, for a visitor/resident, instead of walking through the park after a musical/opera at the Music Center, they would prefer to walk directly back to their hotel or residence because it is VERY inconvenient to walk around the Courthouse (which offers absolutely no social/entertainment value to the immediate area). Not only does this mean less "natural" areas to escape the busy city life, but possibly less people lingering outside, which decreases the vibrancy of the entire area. Furthermore, views from inside the park are also obstructed as one cannot see the Disney Hall nor the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.



Whatever is constructed on parcels Q/W-2 (hotel/residential/office towers), the people cannot walk across the street to the park easily, vice versa. People will have to walk around those huge buildings, which will be an inconvenience most may not tolerate. Anyone who doubts me, should go to parcel Q/W-2 and pretend/imagine that the hotel/residential tower/office buildings are completed and you want to go to the "great" civic park. Not so easy is it? (I did that recently when I took my cousins there for a tour) Next, go inside the park: can you see the Cathedral from inside the park? No. Can you see the "new hotel?" (or residential tower?) Maybe, depending on where you're located at in the park and how tall they will be. Can you see Disney Hall? No. Will the park offer spectular views? No. Will you like the park? Probably not. See my point? So what exactly DO YOU SEE? An UGLY and towering courthouse with no relevance to the cultural area what-so-ever!

The Grand Avenue planners are thinking extremely narrowly circumscribed by a limited budget of course. Nevertheless, they present a plan that assumes that it's just a "straight line" and they can ignore anything that lies outside that straight line (Grand Avenue). It is common sense that Downtown Los Angeles needs to be connected in all ways and directions, ESPECIALLY for a park in such close proximity to some of the most significant and highly concentrated cultural venues in the entire metropolitan area!

As the illustrations clarify, the view from inside the park will suffer for those who enter! If one is in the park, would it not be ideal to have a unobstructed (almost 360 degree) view of the beautiful Disney Hall, the meaningful Cathedral, the modern new hotel/residential high-rises, the rest of the Music Center (which is partially blocked by the two eye-sores depending on how far east you enter the park), and to the east, City Hall? Instead of feeling connected to Grand Avenue, you'll feel like you're in another area altogether. There will be a feeling of disconnection that will obviously not be as effective as feeling visually connected to the area.

Given the history of Bunker Hill, the idea of connectivity seems to be as elusive as coming up with an adequate source of funding. In the end, the structures (hotel/residential/office/retail) that are planned to be built on the parcels may not suffice if they are not tied together by a successful park which is socially and visually necessary to Grand Avenue.

[DJM19]

I kinda wish the park had more grass in it, it doesnt seem to have much...

http://www.theslatinreport.com/pictures/parkplan_51805.jpg

[BrighamYen]

^ It's all very preliminary. To tell you the truth, I wish not only for more lush green grass, but a garden designed by the landscape architects who did the Getty Center, which is the most beautiful garden I have ever seen in America. It would truly make the park world-class IMO.

[Bernd]

It's a shame about the film museum. That, singularly, could be the draw that Grand needs to bring tourists into discovering downtown. If the museum ever does come into reality, I can only imagine it surpassing the Getty as the most visited cultural draw in LA. And the way the Getty is being run nowadays, that probably isn't too hard.

Hollywood themed museums never draw well. I doubt it would be much of a catalyst.

[ocman]

It's a shame about the film museum. That, singularly, could be the draw that Grand needs to bring tourists into discovering downtown. If the museum ever does come into reality, I can only imagine it surpassing the Getty as the most visited cultural draw in LA. And the way the Getty is being run nowadays, that probably isn't too hard.

Hollywood themed museums never draw well. I doubt it would be much of a catalyst.

But the difference is that this would be the first museum started by the Academy rather than a less prestigious entity, which is a much bigger deal as it has the connections to get the best. And from the press releases, it seems they are very aware of trying to avoid the trappings of being the "town attic" and more interested in taking a serious approach and showing people what making a film entails. I guess it could fail, but I wouldn't categorize the project with other hollywood themed museums.

And I think it could be hugely successful if they host symposiums and bringing in people who were involved with a movie to come in and talk. Being the Academy, I couldn't imagine that being out of their possibilities.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

From Downtown News, 20 June 2005:

Capitalizing on the Grand Opportunity
by Robert S. Harris

Even the first phase of the proposed Grand Avenue project is just big enough to significantly remodel its locale, not only adding new life and activity within the project area itself, but also having the potential to add connections and meaning within its cultural-civic district.

It ought to be clear that a project of the magnitude and ambition of the Grand Avenue plan will take more mature shape over a period of time during which it is at least refined in scope and character, and more likely transformed as actual tenants are enlisted and as somewhat elusive realities of project economics are resolved. Fundamental objectives will inevitably also be further clarified and refined during the upcoming period of intensive project development.

The project itself now includes elements that should be welcomed Downtown. Especially, its mix of residential accommodations along with a variety of retail and entertainment venues and perhaps a hotel, even another market, will be valuable additions and may provide further catalytic impact for adjacent development in the district.

The degree to which this project includes some reconfiguration of the civic park should perhaps also be widely applauded, although the use of private funds to make public space has not been a great success in other Downtown projects, such as Pershing Square and a number of plazas associated with high-rise office buildings.

If this "heart" is to bring real life to Downtown Los Angeles, its arteries must thrive. The arteries of a city are its streets, and here they are First and Grand. First Street cuts through the city from far to the west, entering Downtown past Bunker Hill, the Civic Center, Little Tokyo and the Arts District to the great bridge over the Los Angeles River and up the heights well into East Los Angeles. The proposed project has the potential to help form a distinctive and highly enjoyable First Street, perhaps a "park street," a proper civic street, down the hill from the Music Center all the way to the river.

First Street is steep in places, especially between the metro station just east of the Grand Avenue project site and Disney Hall and the Music Center. A promenade stepping from landing to landing would enliven this experience while providing many entries to and from the new project's interior spaces. First Street already serves important civic and cultural, residential and commercial destinations, each reinforced by the other. To become a truly great street it must now link them with verve and pride.

Similarly, Grand Avenue will be "grand" when it is full of life. Of course there are already the occasions of such life as concertgoers arrive and depart, and as MOCA and Colburn School openings and special events occur. The improved connection between the Music Center plaza and Grand Avenue provides a glimpse that further connections and life can be obtained. But much more needs to be done to carry life up to Temple Street and thus to any chance of a viable connection to the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels beyond just seeing its bell tower.

In the other direction, connecting south to the main terrace of Downtown below Bunker Hill is a much greater challenge. The street is steep and there are existing parking garages that will require modification. But at the crown of the hill, Grand Avenue can be a place of miraculous beauty. Mark Rios' interim landscape design already provides a sense of what is possible, but much more now can be done. As a street place at night, a memorable public place made as a plaza running without curbs from façade to façade across the avenue, its lighting within a canopy of trees and great awnings, with street life emanating from cafes, theaters and sidewalk vending, can be a sight no one would want to miss.

These arteries running between such important destinations can be our new parade routes, our new places of celebration in a setting of genuine civic meaning. The opportunity before us is exhilarating if we work diligently and with great focus. We must not allow this opportunity to dissipate. I would rather immediately spend more open space money on the public space of the streets than almost any of it on the civic park, although the space across from City Hall is an additional urgent opportunity for improvement.

Robert S. Harris, FAIA, lives Downtown, was chair of the Downtown Strategic Plan Advisory Committee, and is a professor of architecture at the USC School of Architecture.

[ocman]

After the unveiling of this universally panned disaster that they call the Freedom Tower, and Liebeskind seemingly being bought off to go along with David Child's boring building that completely lacks architectural merit, is anyone here fearing what the Related Companies has in store for Grand Avenue which is much less prestigious than the WTC redevelopment?

My biggest fear is that our landmark is designed by some great architect by name only, and that it ends up being another part of David Child's collection.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Eric at blogdowntown.com posted this link to detailed Grand Avenue Plans (http://clkrep.lacity.org/councilfiles/05-1312_rpt_cra_6-16-05.pdf) as sent to the LA City Council for approval. There's lots of info in there, it'll take me awhile to judge if it includes anything noteworthy.

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Cool, thank you.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Possibly noteworthy details:

Phase I (completion: November 2009.)
Civic Park (between City Hall and Music Center)
Parcel Q (across Grand from Disney Hall)
Retail: 200-300k sq feet
Hotel: 225-275 rooms
Condo: 320-375 units
Apartment: 80-95 units
Parking: 1600-2000 spaces

Phase II (completion: 2.5 years after start.)
Parcels L and M2 (between Grand and Hill along Second)

Phase III (completion: 2.5 years after start.)
Parcels W1 and W2 (between Hill/Olive and First/Second)

Project will include funding for streetscape improvements of Grand Avenue from 5th up to Chavez/Sunset.

[LAMetroGuy]

Here is the audio, if anyone wants to listen to it:

On Monday, May 23, 2005, a panel of city and county officials, the Grand Avenue Authority, voted unanimously in favor of a $1.8 billion joint project to revitalize Grand Avenue. The master plan, developed by New York-based The Related Companies, includes creating a 16-acre civic park, more than 2,100 residential units -- 20 percent of which will be designated as affordable -- and making streetscape improvements along Grand Avenue, from Fifth Street to Cesar Chavez Avenue. The vote forwards the plan to the Community Redevelopment Agency, City Council and county Board of Supervisors for approval. Larry talks with Eli Broad, LA Civic leader, philanthropist, and Co-Chairman of the Grand Avenue Committee, Brenda Levin, President of Levin & Associates, an architecture firm that is participating in the design of the Grand Avenue Project, and Martha Welborne, managing director of the Grand Avenue Committee.

http://www.levinarch.com/news/item.php?id=15

[bobcat]

According to Attachment E, dated May 17, 2005, Phase I will include:

Retail: 291,000 sf
Hotel: 225 rooms
Hotel Condo: 200 Units
Other Condo: 150 Units
Low Income Apartments: 88 Units

[bobcat]

Whether you like Gehry's work or not, you can't deny that his proejcts make headlines, and this would give the Grand Ave project the big "WOW" factor that it's been lacking.


From July 13, 2005 WSJ:


Frank O. Gehry doesn't have to worry about what gets built next to his landmark Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Developer Related Cos. has asked Mr. Gehry to design the entire $1.8 billion Grand Avenue redevelopment, a massive cluster of hotels, apartments, restaurants and retail and entertainment enterprises adjacent to his swooping performance icon in Los Angeles. A spokesman for Gehry Partners confirmed the job.

Kenneth A. Himmel, an executive at Related, says Mr. Gehry will have a "pretty strong free hand" in the project, which is meant to breathe life into the desolate downtown L.A. strip. Plans include a 40- to 50-story tower across the street from the concert hall.

New York-based Related dabbled with a series of architects before putting Mr. Gehry in sole charge. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Thom Mayne's firm Morphosis, Elkus/Manfredi Architects, and Brenda Levin were all involved at some point. The two sides are expected to sign a contract in early August.

The commission gives Mr. Gehry, 76 years old, his second immense urban redevelopment project. He is also the only architect for Forest City Ratner's $3.5 billion arena, office and housing plan for Brooklyn's Atlantic Rail Yards.

[Bernd]

^ Holy sheeite!!!

[Swansea]

That is great news. With Gehry at the helm there could be architectural unity within this area that'll quite look like nothing else anywhere.

[BrighamYen]

It's a lot better than David Childs.

I think itll be interesting. I don't expect Gehry to replicate the "Disney Hall" across the street in a taller form. I hope he'll go with something completely different, perhaps using unconventional materials besides just granite and glass.

[bobcat]

The story doesn't specifically mention it, but I'm assuming that he would have a hand in the design of the civic park, too. If so, that would be great.

[LAMetroGuy]

this is good news, but I hope it doesn't end up looking anything like Brooklyn's Atlantic Rail Yards, which is also designed by Mr. Frank...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/rpulido/ratner1.jpg

[POLA]

Yeah, that is a little scary. You know everyone leaves a city remembering the more regal and classic buildings not the "funky" buildings.

[LAMetroGuy]

I remember when various architects met with architecture students in a symposium to discuss the the Grand Avenue project, Bradd Pitt was amongst Frank's team.

http://www.arcspace.com/news/symposium/3.Symposium.jpg

They had this picture which showed the work in progress... I knew this work wasn't going to go to wast! ha! I hope they don't name one of the buildings, the Pitt Tower...
http://www.arcspace.com/news/symposium/5.Symposium.jpg:frog:

[DJM19]

Im just afraid Gehry will make something too crazy. I dont want anything close to those Atlantic Rail Yards. Is Gehry capable of making of making a buildings thats different from other buildings but still normal, if there is such a thing as a normal building. I guess normal means all sides go up-down, none diagonal (except for the top maybe)

[citywatch]

WOW! This is why this board is so damn worthwhile. I'd have been the last to know about some of these stories if it weren't for posts from ppl like bobcat, LAMG, LAB, etc.

And, LAMG, I can understand your or other ppl's POV who are uneasy about some of Gehry's work. I too sometimes have some issues with his way of thinking-----for instance, his desire that the sidewalk in front of Disney Hall have no landscaping whatsoever. However, because many devlprs & property owners in DT have had a hard time attracting businesses, tourists, retailers &, until not too long ago, residents too, any large proj like Grand Ave will require a major hook to lure such ppl or groups in. IOW, architecture that's too bland or burban-like will make lots of potential users or tenants or whatever think, hell, why not just go to Century city, or OC, or Ventura County?

The Time Warner Ctr in NYC, designed by the same firm assigned to create mock ups for Grand Ave, would've done well no matter what, even if it was same ol, same ol, or dull in a big burban mall sort of way, which it is. Projs in DT LA, by contrast, don't have as much room to manuver in order to hit paydirt.

[BrighamYen]

I wouldn't mind a tower named "Brad Building" ;)

[bobcat]

Hmm, the Atlantic Rail Yards looks like something out of Toontown...after an earthquake! :laugh:

Still, having Gehry at the helm along with Related's financial clout will hopefully give this project a bit of cachet, which will in turn help lure high profile tenants to fill the retail development.

[bobcat]

I wouldn't mind a tower named "Brad Building" ;)

Or even a "Brad-gehry" Building to go along with the Bradbury Building. :D

[BrighamYen]

^ Hopefully, it'll have a VERY upscale component like Rodeo Drive or Madison Avenue or Michigan Ave. or South Coast Plaza.

[LAMetroGuy]

Hmm, the Atlantic Rail Yards looks like something out of Toontown...after an earthquake! :laugh:

Still, having Gehry at the helm along with Related's financial clout will hopefully give this project a bit of cachet, which will in turn help lure high profile tenants to fill the retail development.

I think you are right about that. There was this article called "Condo Couture" and it suggested that, "architect names like Gwathmey and Gehry sell apartments like Gucci and Prada sell clothes"... here is a link to the article:

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/arts/architecture/10183/

[BrighamYen]

I wouldn't mind a tower named "Brad Building" ;)

Or even a "Brad-gehry" Building to go along with the Bradbury Building. :D


No "Brad Building" will be just fine for me, thank you. :cool:

[LAMetroGuy]

WOW! This is why this board is so damn worthwhile. I'd have been the last to know about some of these stories if it weren't for posts from ppl like bobcat, LAMG, LAB, etc.

And, LAMG, I can understand your or other ppl's POV who are uneasy about some of Gehry's work. I too sometimes have some issues with his way of thinking-----for instance, his desire that the sidewalk in front of Disney Hall have no landscaping whatsoever. However, because many devlprs & property owners in DT have had a hard time attracting businesses, tourists, retailers &, until not too long ago, residents too, any large proj like Grand Ave will require a major hook to lure such ppl or groups in. IOW, architecture that's too bland or burban-like will make lots of potential users or tenants or whatever think, hell, why not just go to Century city, or OC, or Ventura County?

The Time Warner Ctr in NYC, designed by the same firm assigned to create mock ups for Grand Ave, would've done well no matter what, even if it was same ol, same ol, or dull in a big burban mall sort of way, which it is. Projs in DT LA, by contrast, don't have as much room to manuver in order to hit paydirt.

Yes, I totally agree with you about LA being a different animal than NYC... I think that the tragedy of Bunker Hill is something that is going to be on the top of everyones radar and will try, at least, to prevent the same from happening again. Also, I agree that bland tall square buildings might just make LA look more like a boirng dowtown LA but just bigger.

[bobcat]

IOW, architecture that's too bland or burban-like will make lots of potential users or tenants or whatever think, hell, why not just go to Century city, or OC, or Ventura County?



There was an opinion piece (from I forget where) not long ago that was asking why one would go visit Grand Ave when they could find the same things at the Grove, 3rd Street Promenade, etc. Interesting architecture and unique stores will be of utmost importance in helping make DT LA a real destination.

[BrighamYen]

^ Well, upscale retail can only be found in a few places, like Rodeo Drive and Melrose and Robertson, which are all scattered.

We can consolidate them into one area. Imagine having John Varvatos, Kitson, Jimmy Choo, Marc Jacobs, Thomas Pink, Mango, Cartier, TSE, Frette, Ron Herman, Ghost, etc. all in one place...

[LAMetroGuy]

IOW, architecture that's too bland or burban-like will make lots of potential users or tenants or whatever think, hell, why not just go to Century city, or OC, or Ventura County?



There was an opinion piece (from I forget where) not long ago that was asking why one would go visit Grand Ave when they could find the same things at the Grove, 3rd Street Promenade, etc. Interesting architecture and unique stores will be of utmost importance in helping make DT LA a real destination.

To answer that question, for me would be access and variety. I can see myself take the blue line to downtown and spend time at either LA Live or Grand Ave and not have to deal with traffic and parking. To get to the Grove, that structure sucks big time! With Grand Ave or LA Live, it is centrally located. Right now, I have lots of friends in the valley or in the west side and I'm in Long Beach. If we want to go to the movies, restaurants or shopping... there is no place that is "in between" us. Either I have to drive to the freaking Grove or they have to drive all the way to downtown LB. Now with LA Live and Grand AVe, we can all meet in the middle and I don't have to take a car!

[citywatch]

^ I was happy to read in the DT News (or somewhere) that recent summertime concerts at Cal Plaza are drawing lots of ppl, with a recent one even attracting a record crowd. However, that devlpt should be daily reminder to all of us that Bunker Hill needs something quite remarkable to get as many ppl & businesses as possible to sit up & take notice.

It prob will be tough luring a really large group of tenants to DT regardless (& thanks, Hahn, for screwing up the stem cell bid, or to Yahoo Overture for favoring Burbank over DT), but it would be that much harder if, again, the Grand Ave proj turned out to be as anonymous or bland as the Cal Plaza proj is. IOW, ppl certainly don't go out of their way to visit Cal Plaza the same way they'll make a pilgrimage to see the many highrise (or lower rise) landmarks in, by contrast, a city like NY, or the Golden Gate in SF.

[RAlossi]

for instance, his desire that the sidewalk in front of Disney Hall have no landscaping whatsoever.

That just reminded me. I go to school downtown (well, Alvarado/Beverly... so, **near** downtown) and I decided to have lunch in Little Tokyo. I drove down First Street and while I was sitting at the traffic light at First and Grand I noticed some type of construction going on on the sidewalk in front of the Disney Hall. Anyone know what that is? It's probably just some sewer line installation, but it would be cool if it were some type of greenery!

By the way, Orochon Ramen in Little Tokyo (Weller Court) is awesome! I highly recommend you all visit.

[citywatch]

I noticed some type of construction going on on the sidewalk in front of the Disney Hall. Anyone know what that is? It's probably just some sewer line installation, but it would be cool if it were some type of greenery!

DT News, July 7, 2005

Controversial Art Project Begins at Disney Hall

Crews last week started building the foundation of the much-debated "Collar & Bow" sculpture in front of Walt Disney Concert Hall at First Street and Grand Avenue. The 66-foot high piece by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen will depict a furled white collar and black bow tie standing on end. Although Oldenburg is a heralded artist and a longtime friend of Disney Hall architect Frank Gehry, some have charged that "Collar & Bow" will be an egregious addition to the curving, shimmering hall. The sculpture's foundation will take about 10 weeks to build. Construction on the actual artwork - made of stainless steel and aluminum - will begin in October, with completion scheduled for early next year.

[RAlossi]

Damn, I knew that but I completely forgot! Thanks, Citywatch.