[LongBeachUrbanist]

Honestly, did you guys expect anything different from Related? They're the kings of the shopping mall.

I didn't really expect anything different from Related. Maybe I wished that out of self-interest, they would learn some lessons from the urban design missteps already on display up and down Bunker Hill. But naturally, they do what they do, they build shopping malls.

My anger is specifically reserved for the elected and non-elected public officials in City and County government who are responsible for this publicly-owned land. The whole point of this project from their POV is to create a better connected and more lively downtown. If they let this through, they are clearly abdicating their responsibility with respect to this goal.

I do have one thing to say about the critical architectural review. He talks about the Olive Street side of Phase I being fairly closed off. While I agree this is a bad thing, I think we have to somewhat reserve judgement on this until we see how this will connect to Phase III. I'm sure that Phase III will open generously onto Hill Street and flow effortlessly into Phase I. Or I guess I should say, I want to believe this is the case.

[citywatch]

This image makes very clear what the architecture critic is talking about. Related has clearly leaned on the designers of this thing to create an enclosed shopping mall. I'd like to see the architect's renderings to know exactly what you're describing. The idea of "enclosed" is lame & retro, even more so if only because projs like the Grove have been so successful.

I wonder if you're possibly misinterpreting Gehry's layout. IOW, maybe the only areas that actually are enclosed, meaning they have a roof & walls around & over them, are, naturally, the interior of the stores themselves.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Here is the image I was referring to, viewed from Grand Avenue, facing east from Disney Hall. It's only available as a PDF, it took awhile to stitch it together into a jpeg.

http://static.flickr.com/49/134318242_0ec4793f96_b.jpg

It's a very pretty design, I just don't think it achieves the urban design objectives some of us had.

[Howard Roark]

I don't see what the problem is in respect to Grand Avenue. From that massing there appears to be a lot of attention given to street front detail. I don't know what the surrounded streets will look like so far though, perhaps that is what you are refering to.

[citywatch]

^ I notice they use the word "pavilion" to describe the retail spaces. That makes me think the design at least won't mimic Related's Time Warner Ctr in NYC, which would be a major blunder for Grand Ave. IOW, it at least won't be a fully indoor shopping ctr. However, I can see some possible pitfalls & a lot of Catch 22s in the way the retail interacts with Grand Ave.

[Steve2726]

So the official unveiling was supposed to start at 11:30.... Hopefully more info will be forthcoming.

Also:

http://www.grandavenuecommittee.org/updates.php
Posted April 24, 2006

PUBLIC MEETINGS
Join us at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for a Phase I design update. Public meetings regarding the Civic Park will be scheduled separately in June, July and September. We want to continue to hear your ideas about how the project can transform the Los Angeles Civic Center, and create a place for all Angelenos to experience and enjoy.


DATE TIME MEETING LOCATION FREE PARKING

Thursday, May 25 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
Grand Hall
135 N. Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90012 LA DWP
111 N. Hope St.
Los Angeles

[LongBeachUrbanist]

I don't see what the problem is in respect to Grand Avenue. From that massing there appears to be a lot of attention given to street front detail. I don't know what the surrounded streets will look like so far though, perhaps that is what you are refering to.

My problem isn't with the street frontage on Grand Avenue. My problem is that it's an indoor mall.

Remember all the talk about creating a kind of Champs-Elysees/Ramblas/3rd St.-style promenade? This is what I thought was being planned. Well, the much hyped outdoor pedestrian thoroughfare is gone. It has been replaced by a closed shopping center with one primary entrance. This does not match the hype.

[LAMetroGuy]

Why don't we wait and see the true details.... before making the call.

[Bernd]

That one picture (Thanks for stitching it together) does make it look like an enclosed mall, but we need to see how the design interacts with the other surrounding streets before we can pass judgement.

[citywatch]

Why don't we wait and see the true details.... before making the call.I agree, esp since the LA Times architecture writer, so far, hasn't knocked the retail layout as being too much like an indoor mall.


And pls note that I'm not the only one at SSP who keys in gloomy or negative posts in this forum. :D

[Infestma]

I came back from the event about an hour ago. It was amazing. Frank Gehry, Villaraigossa, Steven Ross, Eli Broad, Jan Perry, and many more were right there in front of me.

They all spoke, but the most interesting was Gehry of course. He said that the development is supposed to be a continuation of the disney concert hall (at least the retail component of it). He tried to complement with the retail and pavilions across the street. He also attempted to make the development "LA like", by making it more open to the environment and taking advantage of the climate that exists here. Steven Ross, who is the CEO of Related, talked how much he tried to get Gehry to sign on the development but he kept refusing and finally he agreed.

There is so much more I can talk about it but I have to goto class right now. I'll have some pictures a bit later on. My friend had the camera so I have to get the pics from her.

[Bernd]

Any announcements as to which retailers have signed on?

[Infestma]

Steven Ross talked about how theyre will be "good" restaurants as requested by the mayor. There will also be a 5 star hotel. I didn't hear of any names to specific retail or hotels. He also said they have been getting a lot of interest by retailers and restaurants from the west side and we should expect things from them.

[POLA]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericrichardson/sets/72057594116112236/

51 photos from

http://blogdowntown.com/

[bobcat]

Hmm. I don't get the feeling that this is like an enclosed mall at all. The retail "florettes" appear to be fronting the streets along the project periphery, and the abundant use of glass gives the project a lot of transparency. I do wish there could have been a cultural component, however. (I wonder if this "major electronics store" is an Apple Store.)

At this point I'm cautiously optimistic.

[bobcat]

Steven Ross talked about how theyre will be "good" restaurants as requested by the mayor. There will also be a 5 star hotel. I didn't hear of any names to specific retail or hotels. He also said they have been getting a lot of interest by retailers and restaurants from the west side and we should expect things from them.


Thanks for the info, Infestma! I'm crossing my fingers about the 5 star hotel.

[danny1100]

I think it's safe to assume that LA LIVE is to be branded as more of a tourist destination. GAP on the other hand is "supposed" to be more residential based ... I attended several of the public meetings about the GAP design and it seemed like Related got the point that this needs to possess residential elements to promote the urban population ..

With that said, where is the MARKET, where are the THEATERS ... we want less BEST BUY and more WHOLE FOODS typed retailers .... is it possible that they just don't have a franchise named attached and are holding back on those details ... Anyone know about this ...




http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericrichardson/sets/72057594116112236/

51 photos from

http://blogdowntown.com/

[bobcat]

With that said, where is the MARKET,

I'm guessing they still haven't worked out all the details, but the supermarket is planned for the corner of 1st and Olive.

http://static.flickr.com/54/134430989_d822764680.jpg?v=0

[bobcat]

I gotta admit I think the glowing pavilion at 1st/Grand looks very cool. The lighting elements could really make this a very popular nighttime destination.

http://static.flickr.com/53/134431613_2003e1116f.jpg?v=0

[Wright Concept]

I like the parking entrance on First Street.

[ocman]

If we are going to compare it to the Champs Elysees, they have to get rid of the billboards. The layout seems similar to what they are doing at LA Live. I don't get it. They could make more profit if they put housing on top of those two retail islands facing Disney Hall. If would be less busy as well and more pleasant, visually.

[citywatch]

The layout seems similar to what they are doing at LA Live. I don't get it. That's a good analogy. When I look at this diagram from a photo in the album of someone named Eric Richardson, the free standing retail bldgs make me think of the format being used for the LA Live proj. IOW, I don't think LBU is correct in thinking it will be an indoor mall.

http://static.flickr.com/49/134431500_73aa96b25b.jpg?v=0

They could make more profit if they put housing on top of those two retail islands facing Disney Hall. If would be less busy as well and more pleasant, visuallyIt does seem some of the air space is being wasted, or that the proj has a lot of low density areas.

But OTOH there are a lot of catch 22s associated with taller devlpt. For instance, highrise construction costs more than low rise, which means the higher up you go, the more $$ you have to charge for users, be they hotel guests, apt or condo dwellers or office tenants. Making matters tougher, there hasn't be a lot of demand for new space in the hood from many ppl who fall into those various groups.

[colemonkee]

The more and more I look at this, the more I like it. It's not perfect, but it's a damn good start. The one major thing left to look at is the corner of 2nd and Olive, as Tom Gilmore mentioned in Eric Richardson's blog. A lot of people from the OBD and Little Tokyo areas will be approaching the property from that corner on foot. The project should greet pedestrians well at that corner to encourage further development down 2nd Street, connecting the new Bunker Hill with the already developing neighborhoods below.

[towersla]

Let's see: Los Angeles Business Journal Staff - partnership of LNR Property Corp., Lennar Corp. and KB Home walked away from a deal to build 40-story and 27-story condominium towers near the Staples Center.

http://downtownnews.com/content/articles/2005/10/31/news/news04.jpg
Los Angeles Business Journal Staff - And the South Group . . . reduced the size of a tower near Figueroa and 12th streets to make the project more economical.

I'm grateful, excited, hopeful, thankful, that a tinkertoy parking lot might be transformed into downtown's Cinderella block. Heck, I'd settle for one of the stepsisters. I say, it's time to celebrate, embrace, build it! The encroaching midnight of LA's real estate opportunity seems fast approaching.

Manhattan we are not.

"Beggars can't be choosers."

[Wright Concept]

The more and more I look at this, the more I like it. It's not perfect, but it's a damn good start. The one major thing left to look at is the corner of 2nd and Olive, as Tom Gilmore mentioned in Eric Richardson's blog. A lot of people from the OBD and Little Tokyo areas will be approaching the property from that corner on foot. The project should greet pedestrians well at that corner to encourage further development down 2nd Street, connecting the new Bunker Hill with the already developing neighborhoods below.

2nd and Olive?

That is one of the steepest walks of Bunker Hill at least a 5-6 story difference. I hope he meant 1st Street which will have just as many pedestrians walking than 2nd. Might I add will be an easier climb than 2nd.

Maybe that is what Mr. Gilmore is alluding to the fact that there needs to be some pedestrian treatment from Hill up to Olive to soften the steepness, similar to the Bunker Hill steps. But that corner isn't all that bad in it's design.

1st and Olive looks like they can work some magic there. First Street well what can you do it's a parking entrance in the middle of the street. But I guess that won't matter. Since folks will come in via Grand and feel enclosed with the retail blocks surrounding them.

Maybe they can place the entrance to the residential tower in the middle (where the parking entrance is currently located) with the retail blocks hugging the corners will at least create a street facade which is an important element for the park visually.

[ocman]

[/b]That's a good analogy. When I look at this diagram from a photo in the album of someone named Eric Richardson, the free standing retail bldgs make me think of the format being used for the LA Live proj. IOW, I don't think LBU is correct in thinking it will be an indoor mall.


[/b]It does seem some of the air space is being wasted, or that the proj has a lot of low density areas.

But OTOH there are a lot of catch 22s associated with taller devlpt. For instance, highrise construction costs more than low rise, which means the higher up you go, the more $$ you have to charge for users, be they hotel guests, apt or condo dwellers or office tenants. Making matters tougher, there hasn't be a lot of demand for new space in the hood from many ppl who fall into those various groups.

I'm assuming the reason for that is a tall buildings would visually be an affront to Disney Hall. Gehry probably wants to scale down every building facing Disney Hall to make it the centerpiece of the whole development.

[citywatch]

NY Times, April 25, 2006

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/04/25/arts/grand.span.jpg

Los Angeles With a Downtown? Gehry's Vision

By ROBIN POGREBIN

It isn't easy to create a real downtown district, vibrant and intense, in a city as sprawling and diffuse as Los Angeles, Frank Gehry admits. But that's what he has set out to do with his design for Grand Avenue, unveiled in preliminary form yesterday. The $750 million project, which includes the first high-rises he has ever designed for his hometown, is the first phase of a $1.8 billion development plan by the Related Companies that will remake Grand Avenue as a pedestrian-based gathering point.

"When we talk about L.A. having a downtown, it's a stretch, because L.A. is so spread out as a city," Mr. Gehry said in a telephone interview. "Our downtown probably is a linear one — Wilshire Boulevard or Sunset Boulevard." He said his goal was "to develop the beginning of a community that has the body language of a community and has the scale of a community."

Constituting a full city block across the street from Mr. Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall, which opened in 2003, the three acres to be developed in the first phase include a hotel, residences, retail businesses, restaurants and public amenities. Mr. Gehry's schematic design, still in the planning stages, features two L-shaped towers. The taller one, a 47-story glass building at the corner of Second and Grand, is to house a hotel with about 275 rooms and a condominium with 250 units on the upper floors. The other, rising 25 stories at Olive and First Streets, will have space for 150 lofts and condominiums and 100 affordable apartments.

"A lot of work has been done," said Stephen M. Ross, chairman and chief executive of the Related Companies, adding that people needed to be informed of the progress. "You can't keep putting them off or you don't have any credibility."

Near the two towers are two three-story retail pavilions, on Grand near First Street, made of limestone and glass. Together, the new structures play off Disney Hall — angular, where the hall is curvilinear. "It's ballpark," said Mr. Gehry, emphasizing that the design was still in the early stages. "The design, the urban gestures, the scale relationship to Disney Hall — let's say they've been defined."

In complexity, he said, the multiuse project resembles the proposed Atlantic Yards development he is designing for downtown Brooklyn, which includes a corridor of high-rise towers and a new arena for the Nets basketball team.

Over the next few months, Mr. Gehry — together with his design partner Craig Webb — will refine the exterior design of these buildings, said William A. Witte, president of the Related Companies' California branch, along with "the urban landscape that will activate the public spaces." The towers will feature several terrace levels with greenery designed by the landscape architect Laurie D. Olin, he added. Mr. Gehry said the nature of the buildings' skins would be determined by a cost analysis that is now under way.

Construction of Phase 1 is expected to begin in December, with a projected completion date of 2009. The entire nine-acre Grand Avenue project, which is to unfold in three phases by 2014, will ultimately include 400,000 square feet of retail space, the 275-room hotel and up to 2,600 residences. The goal is to create a new, tightly woven community downtown as well as a fresh destination for the area's 17 million residents and the 24 million visitors it has each year.

The project, to be built on land leased from the county and the city, is overseen by a joint committee of county and city officials known as the Los Angeles Grand Avenue Authority. The design calls for plazas and walkways that would connect the Grand Avenue neighborhood to the city's downtown cultural center, which in addition to Disney Hall includes the Music Center, the Colburn School and the Museum of Contemporary Art. "We wanted to create an art district that would go from MoCA to Temple Street, with a streetscape that has trees, paving and lighting," Mr. Gehry said.

The model shows strings of lights traversing Grand Avenue. Mr. Gehry compared them to those that festoon Mulberry Street during the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy in Manhattan. The architect links his new buildings to a 16-acre civic park that is also to be built as part of the first phase.

Some city experts have questioned the wisdom of trying to generate a downtown in Los Angeles. In a commentary in The Los Angeles Times last year, Joel Kotkin, author of "The City: A Global History" (Modern Library, 2005), wrote that the city "might want to consider whether public resources and private capital could be more effectively channeled into the far-flung neighborhoods of this city where most of us actually live and work."

"These are the places — not this ersatz downtown, Eli Broad's faux Champs-Élysées — that constitute the collective heart of this city and epitomize Los Angeles's unique brand of civic greatness," he added. But Mr. Gehry said planners were striving for a design that would capitalize on Los Angeles's essential identity.

"It's not New York, it's not Paris — it's a different image and we're struggling to find it," Mr. Gehry said. "You don't have a downtown. This is an attempt to find one."

[ocman]

Let's see: , .

I'm grateful, excited, hopeful, thankful, that a tinkertoy parking lot might be transformed into downtown's Cinderella block. Heck, I'd settle for one of the stepsisters. I say, it's time to celebrate, embrace, build it! The encroaching midnight of LA's real estate opportunity seems fast approaching.

Manhattan we are not.

"Beggars can't be choosers."

????
LA is not Manhattan which is WHY we have to be choosers. LA deserves more than taking scraps and bones. Angelinos should demand for the most civic and pedestrian sensitive layouts. The city can't risk another failure and wait 40 more years to knock it down and build anew. Every development around Grand Ave. has to be scrutinized if LA is to get what it deserves.

[dragonsky]

This photo is cool!

[ksep]

of course, today of all days my internet is acting up - after i took like a million pictures at the disney hall event. :gaah:
so here are only a few of my shots with many more to come in the following days.

i love the retail glass pavillion that changes colors, but i think i could do without that pedestrian bridge across olive street.
http://static.flickr.com/51/134599669_ba3016af63_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/55/134601058_8e85998e11_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/53/134601059_bcbef0b8ee_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/48/134614978_8be151ef48_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/50/134586886_99e0c57ec6_o.jpg

[POLA]

is that a stack of used books?

[ksep]

lol...maybe that's where the bookstore goes.

[KarLarRec1]

I don't dislike it.

But I wish it was oriented to the street even more than it already is.

It looks a little messy with all those passageways. I hope it doesn't end up like Hollywood & Highland in terms of some street retail, but the bulk being inwards, plus a bunch of passageways.

[bobcat]

Thanks for the pics, Ksep! The Olive St side is clearly the weakest link, but the Grand Ave side looks very dynamic.

[ksep]

the hotel entrance on grand
http://static.flickr.com/44/134659913_a813653be4_o.jpg

i like all the passageways - as long as there is retail facing all the streets as well. i believe 2nd street is the one that is most neglected in that regard.

[citywatch]

^ Those are the best, most up close pics of the Grand Ave models. Thanks, ksep. And what's with the bridge across Olive St? Is that really necessary?

[Infestma]

Here are mine as promised:

http://photos-760.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893760_5208.jpg

http://photos-761.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893761_6004.jpg

http://photos-762.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893762_6527.jpg

Frank Gehry with Eli Broad
http://photos-764.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893764_7673.jpg

http://photos-769.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893769_5.jpg

Thats me on the left with my friend on the right and Frank Gehry. Gehry looks mad perhaps because we just told him we are from USC. I talked to one of my professors later that day, and he said that Gehry doesnt like to associate himself with SC or schools he has attended because he doesn't want to give them any credit for what he has been able to do. I wish I had known this before telling him. =\
http://photos-772.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893772_1325.jpg

This was almost watching a show in front of you. The officials were pretending to exam the project just so they can have images like this available to the public. It went so far to some camera men asking them to look at the project a certain way or do a certain movement.
http://photos-773.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893773_1749.jpg

http://photos-774.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893774_2219.jpg

Eli Broad giving the introduction
http://photos-776.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893776_3111.jpg

Mayor speaking
http://photos-780.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893780_5229.jpg

Gehry's speech
http://photos-792.facebook.com/n26/159/113/3412106/n3412106_30893792_735.jpg

Okay, thats about it! I'm sorry I didn't have any closer shots of the models. I was too excited about the "people" around me.

[citywatch]

Gehry looks mad perhaps because we just told him we are from USC. I talked to one of my professors later that day, and he said that Gehry doesnt like to associate himself with SC or schools he has attended because he doesn't want to give them any credit for what he has been able to do. What a weird reaction. I'd never have thought he'd be so petty about something like that.

I know when the urban critic for the DT News wrote that Disney Hall wasn't sidewalk friendly, & ran into Gehry at some press function, Gehry said to him something like "you don't know what the hell you're talking about! Fuck you!!!" in front of all the attendees.

I guess creative types, esp if they're leaders in their field, can be head cases, or certainly have big egos.

[ronson]

i think the "champs elysee" of LA should be Broadway not Grand. Grand ave is just mostly high end condos with high end retail. it's not desiged to be a champs elysee. or i shold say, it won't become champs elysee.

[DJM19]

well...it looks quite tall...

[ronson]

i'm surprised with all the time they've had, they still don't have detailed designs of the towers.

[LAMetroGuy]

I think that the potential is there, I hope that Related and Gehry can realize it to its fullest. One thing for sure, that place will draw many tourists (as much as LA Live) and people who visit LA Live will want to visit Grand Ave... as a result I an certain that every stop along the way will become activated in a big way. Living there will be so different and very interesting to say the least. Snowball effect in the making.

[bobcat]

i'm surprised with all the time they've had, they still don't have detailed designs of the towers.

One of Gehry's partners actually said they were being rushed to finish their plans and wished they had a little more time. This is due to Related's desire to begin demolition work at the end of this year.

You can listen to the interview here.

http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/kpcc/news/shows/totc/2006/04/20060424_totc?start=00:00:00&end=00:12:50

[ronson]

I think that the potential is there, I hope that Related and Gehry can realize it to its fullest. One thing for sure, that place will draw many tourists (as much as LA Live) and people who visit LA Live will want to visit Grand Ave... as a result I an certain that every stop along the way will become activated in a big way. Living there will be so different and very interesting to say the least. Snowball effect in the making.

i agree, it will attract tourists, because of Disney Hall, the retail and the park etc. but it's not the same concoctionas the champs elysee

[bobcat]

I think we should stop thinking about comparing Grand to the Champs Elysee. That was just Eli Broad's silly rhetoric. Just like comparing the Civic Park to Central Park.

[ronson]

yea since eli broad made that comparison, everyone's been expecting this development to become like the champs elysee. but it really is nothing close to that.

[ronson]

One of Gehry's partners actually said they were being rushed to finish their plans and wished they had a little more time. This is due to Related's desire to begin demolition work at the end of this year.

You can listen to the interview here.

http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/kpcc/news/shows/totc/2006/04/20060424_totc?start=00:00:00&end=00:12:50


thanks bobcat.

[citywatch]

LA Times, April 25, 2006

Retailers Not Sold on Grand Avenue

By Cara Mia DiMassa and Roger Vincent, Times Staff Writers

They have the world-class architect. They have the cutting-edge design. They have the financing. But Eli Broad and the other backers of the Grand Avenue project still face formidable hurdles in creating an upscale 24-hour vibe in downtown Los Angeles. Building Frank Gehry's glass-curtained towers is just the beginning. The developers must lure back the kind of high-end retailers who began abandoning downtown Los Angeles 50 years ago.

Although Grand Avenue's developers say they are close to locking in a bookstore chain and a boutique hotel, they quietly dropped plans to build an art-house movie theater in the complex because they could not find one willing to take a chance on downtown.

Throughout downtown, developers are finding it is a lot easier to lure well-heeled condo buyers to the urban core than businesses. In what some see as an ominous sign, some of the historic bank buildings converted into lofts have filled their upper floors with new residents but have failed to find retail tenants for the street-level spaces.

Over the last year, downtown business groups have aggressively tried to persuade popular stores in places like Pasadena and Hollywood to open branches in the city center. Despite tours and demographic presentations, many well-known chains, including In-N-Out Burger, Trader Joe's and Barnes & Noble, have so far said no to the area.

"The chains aren't interested yet," said Warren Cooley, project director of the Historic Downtown Retail Project, a city-funded endeavor to attract businesses downtown. "There's not enough population and critical mass. There are still challenges. The homeless issue on the street is a concern when real estate investigators from big chains look. That's sometimes something that concerns them."

Rick Caruso, the developer behind the Grove and several other highly successful shopping centers in Southern California, said he is taking a wait-and-see approach to downtown. "We've looked at downtown a lot, and I have not been able to answer the primary question of who is my customer on evenings and weekends," he said.

So far, Caruso added, downtown's abundant daily office workers and growing number of residents still make up too small an audience to lure fashion boutiques and home furnishing stores. Landlords may be able to attract some retailers by offering reduced rent and other incentives, he said, "but good retailers are going to arrive well after their customer has settled in."

The struggling high-end retail base downtown is often obscured in the booming residential real estate market. More than 6,600 new residential units have been completed downtown since 1999, bring in about 10,000 new residents.

Gehry's plan for a block of city-owned land just east of Walt Disney Concert Hall, publicly unveiled Monday, is designed to build on that residential surge, bringing more residents and services to the area, as well as visitors. His designs call for building a dramatic glass-curtained 47-story tower, a 24-story tower and retail pavilions with shops, outdoor dining and rooftop bars on the block bounded by 1st, 2nd, and Olive streets and Grand Avenue. The project is to include 400 condo units, 100 affordable housing units, a boutique hotel, health club and spa.

Broad and other backers argue that their project is in many ways the tipping point for downtown Los Angeles. They said the project would connect fledging residential districts while creating a central hub around nearby cultural institutions, including Disney Hall, the Music Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Gehry buildings are to be the first phase of a $1.8-billion master plan that calls for eight new towers in the Bunker Hill area. But the plan depends heavily on downtown's revitalization continuing unabated. Critics point out that the Grand Avenue business model would seem dubious if the downtown real estate market were to soften or if crime and the city center's homeless problems were to worsen. The vast majority of the tower space at Grand Avenue is set aside for residences: 2,600 units through all three phases.

Downtown developer Dan Rosenfeld said that although long-term prospects for residential development are strong, the current construction boom would probably lead to oversupply and a sales slump at some point. Still, he said, he expects the housing and retail markets to flourish over time.

Bill Witte of Related Cos., Grand Avenue's developer, said Monday that he understands the Grand Avenue project faces challenges but believes it ultimately will succeed. The developers said they hope to be able to announce some of the project's key retail tenants, including the boutique hotel and several restaurants, within three or four months. Witte called preliminary interest in the project "remarkable" but also struck a cautious tone. "This is not easy," he said. "When you are pioneering, it is never easy."

Boosters of the downtown renaissance, however, were less restrained, noting that 6,000 residential units are under construction and 5,700 more have received building permits or are being vetted for permits, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. "This is the last great urban frontier in this country," said Carol Schatz, president and chief executive of that organization and of the Central City Assn. of Los Angeles, a business advocacy group. "I don't think many people, including those working downtown, ever saw this as a place where people would live."

Schatz said downtown boosters made a conscious decision to concentrate on bringing residents downtown, with the hope that retailers would follow. "You can't sustain retail with just a 9-to-5 office population," she said. "It just won't happen."

A key test for Grand Avenue's viability is expected next year a few miles south, near Staples Center. That neighborhood, known as South Park, has seen the city's biggest boom in condo construction, and many observers of downtown development predict the neighborhood services will follow. The long-awaited arrival of a Ralphs grocery store next year, Schatz said, is expected to be "a second coming. They were here in 1898 and left in 1955, and the fact that we can support a full-scale brand market in the core of downtown Los Angeles has significance above and beyond the market itself."

[ronson]

"There's not enough population and critical mass. There are still challenges. The homeless issue on the street is a concern when real estate investigators from big chains look. That's sometimes something that concerns them."



yea no kidding here. these are grave concerns for any would be investor.

[ocman]

[/b]What a weird reaction. I'd never have thought he'd be so petty about something like that.

I know when the urban critic for the DT News wrote that Disney Hall wasn't sidewalk friendly, & ran into Gehry at some press function, Gehry said to him something like "you don't know what the hell you're talking about! Fuck you!!!" in front of all the attendees.

I guess creative types, esp if they're leaders in their field, can be head cases, or certainly have big egos.

I wouldn't read much into that. For whatever reason, celebs rarely smile in photos with fans. I doubt he has a grudge against students associated with 'SC.

Both Gehry and the Kaplan have a very long and unhappy history even before Disney Hall. Not to defend Gehry, but the incident wasn't exactly a random spaz attack.

[ocman]

LA Times, April 25, 2006

Retailers Not Sold on Grand Avenue

By Cara Mia DiMassa and Roger Vincent, Times Staff Writers

They have the world-class architect. They have the cutting-edge design. They have the financing. But Eli Broad and the other backers of the Grand Avenue project still face formidable hurdles in creating an upscale 24-hour vibe in downtown Los Angeles. Building Frank Gehry's glass-curtained towers is just the beginning. The developers must lure back the kind of high-end retailers who began abandoning downtown Los Angeles 50 years ago.

Although Grand Avenue's developers say they are close to locking in a bookstore chain and a boutique hotel, they quietly dropped plans to build an art-house movie theater in the complex because they could not find one willing to take a chance on downtown.

Throughout downtown, developers are finding it is a lot easier to lure well-heeled condo buyers to the urban core than businesses. In what some see as an ominous sign, some of the historic bank buildings converted into lofts have filled their upper floors with new residents but have failed to find retail tenants for the street-level spaces.

Over the last year, downtown business groups have aggressively tried to persuade popular stores in places like Pasadena and Hollywood to open branches in the city center. Despite tours and demographic presentations, many well-known chains, including In-N-Out Burger, Trader Joe's and Barnes & Noble, have so far said no to the area.

"The chains aren't interested yet," said Warren Cooley, project director of the Historic Downtown Retail Project, a city-funded endeavor to attract businesses downtown. "There's not enough population and critical mass. There are still challenges. The homeless issue on the street is a concern when real estate investigators from big chains look. That's sometimes something that concerns them."

Rick Caruso, the developer behind the Grove and several other highly successful shopping centers in Southern California, said he is taking a wait-and-see approach to downtown. "We've looked at downtown a lot, and I have not been able to answer the primary question of who is my customer on evenings and weekends," he said.

So far, Caruso added, downtown's abundant daily office workers and growing number of residents still make up too small an audience to lure fashion boutiques and home furnishing stores. Landlords may be able to attract some retailers by offering reduced rent and other incentives, he said, "but good retailers are going to arrive well after their customer has settled in."

The struggling high-end retail base downtown is often obscured in the booming residential real estate market. More than 6,600 new residential units have been completed downtown since 1999, bring in about 10,000 new residents.

Gehry's plan for a block of city-owned land just east of Walt Disney Concert Hall, publicly unveiled Monday, is designed to build on that residential surge, bringing more residents and services to the area, as well as visitors. His designs call for building a dramatic glass-curtained 47-story tower, a 24-story tower and retail pavilions with shops, outdoor dining and rooftop bars on the block bounded by 1st, 2nd, and Olive streets and Grand Avenue. The project is to include 400 condo units, 100 affordable housing units, a boutique hotel, health club and spa.

Broad and other backers argue that their project is in many ways the tipping point for downtown Los Angeles. They said the project would connect fledging residential districts while creating a central hub around nearby cultural institutions, including Disney Hall, the Music Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

The Gehry buildings are to be the first phase of a $1.8-billion master plan that calls for eight new towers in the Bunker Hill area. But the plan depends heavily on downtown's revitalization continuing unabated. Critics point out that the Grand Avenue business model would seem dubious if the downtown real estate market were to soften or if crime and the city center's homeless problems were to worsen. The vast majority of the tower space at Grand Avenue is set aside for residences: 2,600 units through all three phases.

Downtown developer Dan Rosenfeld said that although long-term prospects for residential development are strong, the current construction boom would probably lead to oversupply and a sales slump at some point. Still, he said, he expects the housing and retail markets to flourish over time.

Bill Witte of Related Cos., Grand Avenue's developer, said Monday that he understands the Grand Avenue project faces challenges but believes it ultimately will succeed. The developers said they hope to be able to announce some of the project's key retail tenants, including the boutique hotel and several restaurants, within three or four months. Witte called preliminary interest in the project "remarkable" but also struck a cautious tone. "This is not easy," he said. "When you are pioneering, it is never easy."

Boosters of the downtown renaissance, however, were less restrained, noting that 6,000 residential units are under construction and 5,700 more have received building permits or are being vetted for permits, according to the Downtown Center Business Improvement District. "This is the last great urban frontier in this country," said Carol Schatz, president and chief executive of that organization and of the Central City Assn. of Los Angeles, a business advocacy group. "I don't think many people, including those working downtown, ever saw this as a place where people would live."

Schatz said downtown boosters made a conscious decision to concentrate on bringing residents downtown, with the hope that retailers would follow. "You can't sustain retail with just a 9-to-5 office population," she said. "It just won't happen."

A key test for Grand Avenue's viability is expected next year a few miles south, near Staples Center. That neighborhood, known as South Park, has seen the city's biggest boom in condo construction, and many observers of downtown development predict the neighborhood services will follow. The long-awaited arrival of a Ralphs grocery store next year, Schatz said, is expected to be "a second coming. They were here in 1898 and left in 1955, and the fact that we can support a full-scale brand market in the core of downtown Los Angeles has significance above and beyond the market itself."


Maybe Eli Broad is just really optimistic, but I think it was a huge mistake to call it the next Champs. People are going to expect Prada Gucci type retail. The fact that they have a Ralphs pretty much means it won't. High end retailers are very snobby about who their neighbors are. They aren't going to be associated with a supermarket. It'll be very interesting to see what types of stores will set up shop.

[ocman]

of course, today of all days my internet is acting up - after i took like a million pictures at the disney hall event. :gaah:
so here are only a few of my shots with many more to come in the following days.

i love the retail glass pavillion that changes colors, but i think i could do without that pedestrian bridge across olive street.


Thanks for the rat's eye view. It's much more telling that the aerial type photos. I think the project needs to force people to the street rather than above into the air. And there seems to be a lot of second story retail.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

^ I agree. Second-floor retail will only work in an environment that's already overflowing with people. Otherwise, you get into a cycle of

:( few customers upstairs
:( minimal retail upstairs
:( little reason for customers to go upstairs
:( no retail upstairs
:( retail failure.

Even places with very high pedestrian flow can succumb to this phenomenon. Look at upstairs at Hollywood and Highland.

If there is going to be retail on the second floors, it has to be destination merchandise, like high-end or specialty retail. Or perhaps as part of a two-story store, like a Borders or Apple Store. But I think it's safe to say, the second floor stores are not going to be able to count on volume sales, at least not at first.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

That article ends by talking about the new Ralphs supermarket, which I think is going to be a huge influence in the downtown retail situation.

We've talked about how Ralph's may affect the residential market: providing South Parkers a local amenity within walking distance. But I think the effect on the retail market will be equally significant. When that development opens early next year, it will provide an important way to measure the amount of money residents are willing to spend locally. IMO that will get retailers over a huge psychological hurdle, and retailers will begin to open up shop in DTLA.

[Wright Concept]

^EXACTLY :yes: :tup:

[Bernd]

^ I agree. Second-floor retail will only work in an environment that's already overflowing with people. Otherwise, you get into a cycle of

:( few customers upstairs
:( minimal retail upstairs
:( little reason for customers to go upstairs
:( no retail upstairs
:( retail failure.

Even places with very high pedestrian flow can succumb to this phenomenon. Look at upstairs at Hollywood and Highland.

Boy, ain't that the truth. Second floor retail is always a crapshoot, from minimalls on up. Hollywood/Highland tried to go the route of midscale restaurants on the 2nd and 3rd levels, and even those have struggled.

[BrighamYen]

????
LA is not Manhattan which is WHY we have to be choosers. LA deserves more than taking scraps and bones. Angelinos should demand for the most civic and pedestrian sensitive layouts. The city can't risk another failure and wait 40 more years to knock it down and build anew. Every development around Grand Ave. has to be scrutinized if LA is to get what it deserves.


I like your attitude ocman! :tup:

Who said LA should be second to manhattan????? :rolleyes:

[citywatch]

The fact that they have a Ralphs pretty much means it won't. I think you're confusing the Grand Ave proj with the CIM/Lee Gp proj, which contains a Ralphs, condos & a few other stores, at 9th & Flower.

If the devlpr of Grand Ave is even able to land a grocery store, it prob would be something like a Whole Foods or Bristol Farms. However, in terms of the likely sales volume of that type of business over the next several yrs, a smaller, non pricey, retailer like Trader Joe's would be the most realistic. But if the experiences of the Daily Grill, the Palm & Roy's in DT can be extended to other retail businesses, esp ones that sell a lot of perishables like Ralphs, or that need high volume like Barnes & Noble or Target, that will be a sign the hood finally has turned the corner.

[citywatch]

Second-floor retail will only work in an environment that's already overflowing with people. Or where the same retailer controls the first & second, or higher, levels. Or similar to several of the businesses at the Grove, where Barnes & Nobel or various restaurants operate on more than one floor. A similar layout can be seen at the shopping ctr owned by Disney in OC.

If Gehry & Related try to create independent, self contained spaces for stores on a 2nd, or worse, 3rd, level, that will be a big mistake.

[citywatch]

The typically negative pro burban slant of the DN's coverage of the proj. However, their info about a need for tax breaks for the hotel is another example that when a hood goes downhill for too many yrs, the path to recovery is a lot harder to reach.


LA Daily News, April 25, 2006

Call Made for Grand Tax Break

Developer says waiver 'critical' for five-star hotel

BY TROY ANDERSON and RICK ORLOV, Staff Writers

As architect Frank Gehry unveiled his design for the first phase of the $1.8 billion Grand Avenue project, developers said Monday that the city will have to waive the bed tax on the 275-room luxury hotel that is the centerpiece of the redevelopment plan. Developer William Witte of The Related Cos. and city officials said a development agreement will need to be worked out to include a waiver of the tax in order to entice an operator for the five-star hotel proposed for 2nd Street and Grand Avenue. "Waiving of those taxes is a critical element of getting the hotel," Witte said. "It's not for us; it's for the hotel operators."

Set on a three-acre block across the street from the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the first phase would cost $750 million and would include a 50-story glass tower that would house the hotel, 250 condominiums, a rooftop pool, bar and spa. The project also would include open-terraced restaurants, a health club, a bookstore, a garden-like atmosphere and outdoor art.

City Councilman Dennis Zine said Witte's proposal for a tax break caught him unaware. "This almost sounds like a bait and switch," Zine said. "We keep hearing there is no public subsidy and then they want us to waive the hotel bed tax. Well, that amounts to a public subsidy. We aren't doing that for other businesses. The only hotel we did it for was for the Convention Center hotel, and I had questions over that."

The Convention Center hotel project is much larger, with 1,200 rooms. The tax waiver on that is estimated at $160 million over a 20-year period. Under similar conditions, the tax waiver on the Grand Avenue hotel could be as much as $440 million.

"The question you have to ask is if it is such a valuable project, why use public money at all?" asked Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. "This is such a large project, it's hard to believe it won't go ahead without this subsidy."

The architectural designs were unveiled at a ceremony at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, also designed by Gehry. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Supervisor Gloria Molina, Councilwoman Jan Perry and Eli Broad, chairman of the Grand Avenue Committee, also attended. The designs were given exclusively for publication Monday to the Los Angeles Times, a major downtown property owner, by the Grand Avenue Committee headed by billionaire Eli Broad. Several city and county officials said they were powerless to overturn the committee's action.

The first phase is part of the larger project on city and county land, which when completed will include a large park between City Hall and the Music Center, five skyscrapers, 350,000 to 400,000 square feet of retail space, 2,100 to 2,600 condominiums and apartments, and 4,800 to 5,500 parking spaces.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich expressed concerns that the Grand Avenue Authority had not yet complied with the board's request for an independent appraisal of the public parcels or an analysis estimating the worst-case scenario of potential cost overruns. "The supervisor remains concerned about the ultimate costs to taxpayers and would like to see the government subsidy quantified," said Antonovich's planning deputy, Paul Novak. "That has not been done. Additionally, the independent risk analysis and independent appraisal should have been completed months ago, and the authority and Chief Administrative Office have not moved forward to start the work."

Novak said an appraisal made on behalf of the nonprofit Grand Avenue Committee placed the value of the two county-owned parcels at about $300 per square foot while similar properties downtown are selling at $400 to $500 a square foot. "All these financial deals flow out of the assumed value of the property," Novak said. "If the assumed value is underinflated, it means taxpayers are not getting a fair shake for the investment put into this."

The Community Redevelopment Authority has estimated that the county will have to kick in $16.4 million and the CRA will contribute $26.8 million. And Novak pointed out that nearly $25 million of Related's $50 million payment to pay for the park would be spent on converting the existing corkscrew parking ramps on Grand Avenue and Hill Street into slope ramps, significantly reducing the amount of money available for the 16-acre park. A team of landscapers and architects is working on the designs for the civic park. Demolition of the parking garage ramps is expected by the end of the year with construction to start early next year.

Jamie Cordaro, president of the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council, questioned the use of public money for the project. "I don't see where people in the Valley will come downtown for this," Cordaro said. "I'm not sure we need to go downtown to go to a park or shop when we have the stores here and it's just as easy for us to go into the mountains or Griffith Park or the beach."

But Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he is prepared to answer the critics. "This is not just another project," Villaraigosa said. "It is an homage to the city of America's hope and promise.

"All the critics and the naysayers who say this isn't possible, all the negative things you hear from the same naysayers all the time. This is a city of dreams. This is a city of hope. If not here, where?"

[LongBeachUrbanist]

^ More bullsh*t from Related. I can't believe this. Weren't negotiations already completed? They're already getting super-prime land to build on. What else do they want? :pissed: :brickwall:

City Councilman Dennis Zine said Witte's proposal for a tax break caught him unaware. "This almost sounds like a bait and switch," Zine said. "We keep hearing there is no public subsidy and then they want us to waive the hotel bed tax. Well, that amounts to a public subsidy. We aren't doing that for other businesses. The only hotel we did it for was for the Convention Center hotel, and I had questions over that."

The Convention Center hotel project is much larger, with 1,200 rooms. The tax waiver on that is estimated at $160 million over a 20-year period. Under similar conditions, the tax waiver on the Grand Avenue hotel could be as much as $440 million.

[bobcat]

The tax break for the Grand Ave hotel is not warranted. If a 5 star hotel can't be lured otherwise then so be it.

[Wright Concept]

I'd rather see a tax break or some kind of negociation to have the county pay to remove those spiral ramps for the park.

Now this is a bad sign if they have to ask for a tax break. That is why I didn't like Peter Zen of the Bonaventure getting that nice package, because everyone will ask for one when some like this one will not be needed. Hyatt will be a good neighbor, since they give out the Pritzker Prize for Architecture and the Disney Hall being a neighbor means some actual pull to lure visitors.

[z1sthies]

I think they should wait on the the tax waiver, if they need one to lure in a five star hotel on top of everything else it's not worth it. Besides didn't they say they were already talking with someone about a hotel?

[ronson]

^ More bullsh*t from Related. I can't believe this. Weren't negotiations already completed? They're already getting super-prime land to build on. What else do they want? :pissed: :brickwall:


yea, i totally understand your frustration. and you're correct, the land is enough of a subsidy. they should't yield anymore than they already have.

[citywatch]

^ Not sure about the specifics of the hotel deal, as I thought (or hoped) that portion of the Grand Ave proposal was way past the active negotiation stage. However, the fact remains that a lot of ppl haven't been booking hotel rms in DT, & based on a report several days ago about businesses also still not wanting to lease space in the hood, in spite of there being more available vacant offices there than almost anywhere else in LA, the same prob is true even right up to today. That's a major reason the devlprs of LA Live had to go through the meat grinder to get the hotel part of their proj past the talking stage.

[bobcat]

The LA Live hotel is a completely different situation. I don't see any need for any type of subsidy for this hotel. Not only would it be surrounded by all the new development, but it would also be situated inside a Frank Gehry landmark. The initial hype alone should be enough to keep the hotel full for the first few years. Just down the street the Gansevoort, which will cater to a similarly high end clientele, is going up without subsidies despite not being in nearly as advantageous a location.

[PeterJ]

to my knowledge the Gansevoort hotel has not broken ground yet. last time i was down there it was still a patch of dirt.

let's not count our chickens before they are hatched.

[LAMetroGuy]

how can it be a patch of dirt... it is an existing historic building???

[PeterJ]

it's two parts. a rehab of an existing building and new structure built right beside it. the new structure has not broken ground yet.

[LAMetroGuy]

the structure is a restaurant, but the actual hotel will be the existing building.

[PeterJ]

you're splitting hairs, i think.

as far as i understand it, the gansevoort hotel (meaning hotel, bar, restaurant, glass-bottom pool, auditorium, all the amenties...) will be those two connected buildings. i don't think they open the hotel for business until the addition to the Embassy theater is finished.

to my knowledge, they have not broken ground on the new structure or done any major rehab on the old the theatre. basically, i haven't heard or seen anything concrete that says this hotel is defintely-100% going to happen.

i will jump for joy if i'm wrong about this.

[Damien]

Sorry. But I don't think we should be taking money away from cops and teachers to lure a 5-star hotel anywhere, period. I mean really, do you realize we're actually sitting here discussing a tax break for a rich man's resort. Only in George Bush's America.

By the way, I don't understand why tax breaks were needed for the L.A. Live hotel. The project is far from risky. South Park is hot, has loads of room for new residents who have absolutely nothing to do, and the entire project is going to lure more and bigger conventions with participants looking for a place to sleep! In any other reality hotels would be fighting over each other to develop next to the Convention Center, and for all we know they were. Lets use those tax breaks in areas of the city where development is actually risky, like South and East LA. You know that forgotten area south of the 10 and east of the River. It's where countless working class and struggling families live. Where a few good developments would actually make difficult lives a bit better, while creating sustainable commercial centers with recycled dollars. That seems like a much wiser use of tax funds than another retreat for the rich.

[Wright Concept]

^ Well the difference is simple once these folks in South and East LA donate $$$ to a politicians campaign then you'll see that happen but unfortuntely that is not the case.

I saw screw the Wall Street and invest in Pork Politics. A much better ROI

[citywatch]

Just down the street the Gansevoort, which will cater to a similarly high end clientele, is going up without subsidies despite not being in nearly as advantageous a location.
That's a good point. However, the devlpr of the Gansevoort, unlike staid, nervous Wall St type investors, prob is one of those hip kind of ppl who likes going against the grain & taking risks. A lot more ppl with $$ to invest are more likely to hear & read things like what I mentioned before, where some guy in the real estate industry said a few days ago that he still doesn't see businesses wanting to relocate to DT, even though space is filling up fast in hoods like Westwood or Century City & costs a lot more to rent than in DT.

[citywatch]

By the way, I don't understand why tax breaks were needed for the L.A. Live hotel.
The problem is that a lot of ppl who share your views still don't like going to DT, or traveling too far beyond the confines of Ventura blvd or Westwood, or SaMo or Century City. It's not too different from a writer who once did commentary on urban affairs for the LA Times, who said the city should keep it real (iow, he thought the grit of streets like Broadway was authentic or cool), but when he got married & had kids he moved to the burbs.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Again, as far as I know, the negotiations are over. If no hotel is willing to sign up, then so be it, Related is going to lose some money on this deal, and they are going to build an empty tower. But I highly doubt there will be no takers.

It is Related's responsibility to lure a hotel. They have entered into an agreement with the City and County, so now they need to follow through.

Los Angeles is not some desperate little town looking for investment. Downtown L.A. has lots of infrastructure and tons of development going on all over the place. Related now has a prime opportunity to develop some prime land that was coveted by several other developers. Now it's time for them to produce some results.

[bobcat]

By the way, I don't understand why tax breaks were needed for the L.A. Live hotel. The project is far from risky.

I don't agree with this at all. Because it's such a large hotel and with the recent skyrocketing costs of construction, there's definitely a chance it could struggle financially even if it draws a good amount of patronage. In addition, the surrounding area wasn't nearly as hot when the hotel was first proposed. (For that matter, one cannot assume that it will continue to be as hot, depending on the local real estate market.) In fact, you can argue the reason South Park is hot is because of the hotel deal itself.

[Wright Concept]

I don't agree with this at all. Because it's such a large hotel and with the recent skyrocketing costs of construction, there's definitely a chance it could struggle financially even if it draws a good amount of patronage. In addition, the surrounding area wasn't nearly as hot when the hotel was first proposed. (For that matter, one cannot assume that it will continue to be as hot, depending on the local real estate market.)

It all has to do with where the subsidy is coming from. For LA Live it was directly related with the Convention Center, a Public entity.

Now Grand Avenue is a different beast all together now, despite the private-public agreement, because the developer is still responsible for the overall look of the project and what will be programmed in it.

That is what won them the bid in the first place.

And if they were selected in the summer of 2004 and still haven't come into a formal agreement then this re-itterates what I think of this project (I'll refrain from saying it cause I don't want to be labeled jaded or cyncial)

If this was a subsidy for the Park portion of the project (removing the county buildings, for greening over Hill and Broadway or the reconfiguration of the ramps) then there's no issue because there is more of a direct relationship between public-private: a public piece (parking ramps or removing the county buildings) is effecting the private venture the $50 million payment for the park or building the Downtown Connector station under the buildings is valid for a subsidy because this is not within the scope and would require additional agreements and it may effect the development of the private part of the project.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

^Agreed. The convention center hotel was a missing link for many years, and the area was too much of an unknown. IMO the tax break was necessary in that instance.

But more importantly, the tax breaks for the Hilton were agreed to before the deal was sealed. And this agreement came only after a very public debate about the need for tax breaks in that case. Here, it looks like Related is hoping for a quick under-the-table handout, and are trying to use the public's fear of a failed development as leverage to get that handout.

[PeterJ]

if the choice is between no hotel and a hotel with tax breaks, isn't the latter better for everyone. afterall, how much tax revenue is generated by nothing? i mean, isn't it possible that the city's financial loses incurred by the tax breaks will be more than made for by the increased revenues generated by the guests staying at the hotel, not too mention the many, many jobs that the hotel would created?

a lot of people are acting like DTLA is thru the darkest hour and it's going to be nothing but smooth sailing from now on. the only people clamoring to get into the DTLA scene have been the residential developers because of what had been skyrocketing condo sales prices. now that land prices have increased so much and construction costs are so high, the profits from these condo conversations are leveling out. frankly, this is a very scary time for DTLA. it is unclear whether the market is still hot or even warm. we have a fully matured market in terms of costs and overhead; however, we have a fledging market into terms of number of residents and services.

IMHO, we need to keep the pressure on and the incentives in place to lure the service industries back into DTLA. the time for the quick megabuck in condo development is over. it's going to take hard work, patience and some long term thinking (that may mean tax incentives) to keep the development momentum going.

[Wright Concept]

I'm simply playing devil's advocate here,

But wouldn't a exclusive high rise condo or suites designed by Frank Gehry generate just as much or even more sustainable income via property taxes and rates via the DWP for the city than a hotel. But If I recall isn't the taller building suppose to be a mix hotel and resident high-rise? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Also if there is a subsidy to put to work here can't this go for street beautification or putting street lamps on dark streets or signage ordinaces for Broadway, or more cops out on the street to stimulate businesses to invest here because LA has got all the little things together.

[citywatch]

Pathetic that the hood still is like the person who's forced into taking his or her cousin to the big prom. Here it is 2006 & companies or ppl like Related or Peter Zen continue to make things sound hard up.

But if folks who need office space or hotel rms keep avoiding DT & don't change their preferences in the next few yrs, I don't know if the hood will ever move to the next level. And if demand for new housing in DT starts to cool before a lot of gaps are cleaned up & developed, then everything is gonna be right back to square one.

[Damien]

This is not a hotel in the middle of a desert. It's right next to the Convention Center and an arena that holds 20-30K fans and hosts 300 events a year. The only potential risk is in it's height, and the costs associated with it. That's a design choice. A new hotel on the property is not going to struggle and if it does, it won't be for long.

We've all just gotten way too accustomed to developers asking for and getting hand outs to make a bunch of rich people, richer people. Meanwhile, infrastructure in the communities where investment is actually needed continues to fall apart and we're faced with tripling regressive taxes just to support the basics: cops on the street, teachers in classrooms, and parks/libraries.

[Wright Concept]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-thursday27.2apr27,0,2739050.story?coll=la-news-comment-letters

From the Los Angeles Times

Downtown seen from the ground
April 27, 2006

Re "Gehry Sees His Glass Towers Transforming Downtown L.A.," April 24


The tragic flaw of architect Frank Gehry's model of a "revitalized" downtown is that neither he nor anyone else involved seems to have any affection for the downtown that already exists.

You don't revitalize a city by building generic glass boxes; you revitalize it by stressing its unique advantages. From Olvera Street to the old movie palaces, there is a lot to love about downtown.

Have the planners wandered around Grand Central Market? Have they noticed that Broadway is crowded with people shopping on foot? There are many bustling little businesses that would be devastated by the proposed new high-rise malls.

Downtown certainly could use some renovating, but the plans should start with the historic core that is already there.

ELIJAH WALD

Los Angeles

•



Please, somebody stop Gehry! Everyone is in thrall of the star architect these days. They think one giant project — a sports stadium, museum or something else — will bring back the good old days of a vibrant downtown. The reality is that downtown Los Angeles is deadly depressing and that giant projects such as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels and the Walt Disney Concert Hall don't help.

Every piece of architecture must work on the human scale and be pleasant to walk by, around and into. These giant projects are impressive in photos but completely fail on the human level. What's needed for downtown is much more modest, mixed-use areas of shops and residences, open spaces, parks and timeless — not flashy — architecture.

KEN CHRISTENSEN

San Luis Obispo

•



While I applaud the city's desire to develop and improve downtown, as long as the streets are constantly gridlocked and parking nonexistent because of continuous filming, this local won't bother going there to see any of it. Why endure the hassle?

NANCY CARLSON

San Marino

•



Never does transforming L.A.'s downtown include housing for those who clean offices, hotels, restaurants and Staples Center, wait on tables and wash dishes, assist the chefs and do all those other jobs that are often unseen and usually underappreciated. Those workers are not included — certainly not in the condos in Gehry's proposal. Transforming is only for the affluent.

DAMIANA CHAVEZ

Los Angeles

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With all the planning being made for the Grand Avenue project, how is this new development going to tie into the Red Line subway and downtown Dash buses?

Maybe all the powers that be should spend some time on downtown mass transit to inspire them to help make the project facilitate the use of that system, rather than just provide more parking spaces.

CLIFF CABALLERO

Valley Village, Calif.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

The tragic flaw of architect Frank Gehry's model of a "revitalized" downtown is that neither he nor anyone else involved seems to have any affection for the downtown that already exists.

You don't revitalize a city by building generic glass boxes; you revitalize it by stressing its unique advantages. From Olvera Street to the old movie palaces, there is a lot to love about downtown.

Have the planners wandered around Grand Central Market? Have they noticed that Broadway is crowded with people shopping on foot? There are many bustling little businesses that would be devastated by the proposed new high-rise malls.

Every piece of architecture must work on the human scale and be pleasant to walk by, around and into. These giant projects are impressive in photos but completely fail on the human level. What's needed for downtown is much more modest, mixed-use areas of shops and residences, open spaces, parks and timeless — not flashy — architecture.

I just read an article in the Long Beach Business Journal, where they discussed what went wrong at The Pike in Long Beach. The consensus seemed to be that the biggest problem was that the development was designed as an island, cut off from both the beach and the downtown area.

Sound familiar? Yes, we've heard the same thing about Hollywood & Highland and countless other developments in Los Angeles. Don't we ever learn our lesson?

The GAP must not become another of Downtown's islands. It must integrate well not only with Grand Avenue, but with all the surrounding area. Downtown has so many attractions, but none of them are connected to each other. The developers should be looking to link up with the OBD, Little Tokyo, Civic Center, Bunker Hill, Olvera Street, Chinatown, the Theater District, and other Downtown neighborhoods.

What gets me is that these design principles are so obvious, but time and time again these developers violate these principles. Then they wonder why the development was unsuccessful.

They are only thinking short-term, about how to trap as many customers as possible. They need to think more strategically. A great neighborhood will bring far more customers to the area, and ultimately would make the venture far more profitable.

[citywatch]

The comment about connecting the parts has come up a lot over the yrs, in regards to a variety of hoods in LA, but esp DT, & without specifics I've never been quite sure what it means, or if it means what I think it should mean. IOW, the main problem to me----whether it deals with the idea of connection or not----is that you walk a few blocks in any direction, or just down the street, & you encounter either a wasteland parking lot, a depressing SRO bldg, or an equally depressing vacant storefront, or just some dive in general.

Throw in a constant assortment of wandering homeless people, some who smell like piss from a mile away, or worse, the type of person who breaks into cars (as what happened to the commentator at the DN News several wks ago, who saw a guy near his car from a window of a DT restaurant & yelled "get the fuck away from my car!!!"), & it's no wonder that a lot of ppl don't feel connected to the environment.

The main reason for a lot of this is that $$ & ppl with $$ started to flee the hood beginning over 50 yrs ago, & a lot of that or them have never looked back. Again, I think of the comment from a real estate guy not long ago who said he's still not seeing businesses, even though space for them in hoods like Westwood, SaMo or Century city is filling up fast & is way more expensive, giving consideration to moving to DT.

[citywatch]

The city is commissioning a study, which will be paid by the devlpr, to determine whether DT needs more hotel rms & whether a new hotel on Grand Ave that's not paying bed taxes will be competing unfairly with other hotels in the hood. Sadly enough, the way things now stand, there's barely enough support for the current supply of hotel rms, much less the addition of several hundred more.

I bet the study will reinforce the opinion that an LA Live type of deal with Related & the building of a totally new hotel aren't justified right now. After all, the hood still has the lowest hotel booking rates in the county, & nothing so far seems to be changing that.

If the Grand Ave proj were instead located around SaMo, or even OT Pasadena, Related prob would be demanding that they be allowed to build & fully fund a new hotel. But because DT fell apart for yrs & yrs, & too little was done, at least fast enough, to turn things around, the saying of the day is, snooze you lose.



Mayor: No Tax Waiver OK'd for Grand Project

BY RICK ORLOV, Staff Writer

A luxury hotel proposed as the centerpiece of the $1.8 billion Grand Avenue redevelopment ran into a hurdle Tuesday when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa questioned a plan to waive taxes for the project. Villaraigosa said he has not committed to waiving the city's hotel bed tax to induce a hotelier to build the 250- to 275-room facility at Second Street and Grand Avenue, part of a major revitalization unveiled Monday.

"People want to do a lot of things, and we will have to have a discussion about that," Villaraigosa said at an unrelated news conference. "There has been absolutely no commitment to waive any taxes. If the hotel wants to do that, they will have to show us how it's in the city's best interest."

Officials with the Reliant Cos., developers of the massive project that would include a 47-story residential tower, retail development and a six-acre park in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, said they are seeking an arrangement similar to that granted the Convention Center hotel project. In that deal, the city agreed to allow the operators to keep revenue from the bed tax - 14 percent of the room rate - for 20 years at an estimated value of $160 million.

"That was a case where we have a Convention Center that is losing millions of dollars every year and we are trying to bring in more tourists and jobs," Villaraigosa said. "This (Grand Avenue) is a different project. We will have to balance it out and make sure the city is not getting hurt."

Councilwoman Jan Perry, who represents the downtown area where both projects are located, said each needs to be considered separately. "They really are apples and oranges," Perry said. "When it comes to the Grand Avenue project, we will have to see what they come up with. We have to be financially responsible. They've asked for this tax waiver, but we aren't close to that yet. We are going to need a lot more details."

Perry said the developers must complete work on environmental impact reports and enter into negotiations with the city over a final development deal. The city is planning to hire a team of specialists to analyze the deal.

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Edit...

[LongBeachUrbanist]

Here is the text of the Jan Perry's motion that citywatch described above. The first purpose of the proposed study is to decide whether or not the GA Project will create hotel demand or simply take existing business from other hotels. The second purpose is to examine whether or not it's appropriate for the City to give the developer any help.

MOTION

The Grand Avenue project promises to be one of the most significant urban developments in Los Angeles. The proposed residential, commercial, retail, and entertainment components to this project will create a dynamic setting for the City's economic and artistic endeavors.

An important element of this project is a proposal to include a hotel among the various elements envisioned along Grand Avenue. A high quality hotel will create additional opportunities for tourists to experience local landmarks. An essential understanding, though, is that this hotel must supplement and enhance the downtown hotel industry, not draw business away from existing hotel properties.

As with other major hotel projects recently completed or progressing in the City, this hotel will require financial assistance in order to be built. The recently approved Convention Center headquarters hotel to be incorporated into the LA LIVE project provides a model for providing assistance with project financing. This model relies upon a project's fiscal health to ensure adequate funding.

Critical to understanding the fiscal viabilty of that project was a study prepared by PKF Consulting, a firm that is uniquely qualified to evaluate the financial components of hotel construction and operation. PKF has extensive, specialized experience studying the hotel industry across the nation. Such a study is needed to evaluate the proposed Grand Avenue hotel.

The study will determine whether a shortfall exists and whether the proposed new hotel will simply move existing business from existing hotels or create net new hotel business for the City. PKF has agreed to conduct the study for an amount not to exceed $35,000, and the developers, Related Companies, have agreed to fund the cost of the study.

It should be noted that the City is making no commitments at this time. This study, funded by the developer but overseen entirely by the City, will simply provide the necessary information for the City to determine what its participation will be. The results of the study and appropriate recommendations will be brought back to the Council for consideration.

I THEREFORE MOVE that Council AUTHORIZE the Chief Legislative Analyst to negotiate and execute a reimbursement agreement with the Related Companies for funds related to a study of the proposed Grand Avenue hotel; and I FURTHER MOVE that Council AUTHORIZE the CLA to negotiate and execute a contract with PKF Consulting for an amount not to exceed $35,000 to prepare an analysis of the proposed Grand Avenue hotel.

Presented by: Jan Perry, Councilwoman, 9th District
Seconded by: Bernard C. Parks

[LongBeachUrbanist]

The comment about connecting the parts has come up a lot over the yrs, in regards to a variety of hoods in LA, but esp DT, & without specifics I've never been quite sure what it means, or if it means what I think it should mean. IOW, the main problem to me----whether it deals with the idea of connection or not----is that you walk a few blocks in any direction, or just down the street, & you encounter either a wasteland parking lot, a depressing SRO bldg, or an equally depressing vacant storefront, or just some dive in general.

I know I'm sometimes guilty of throwing around the "connections" comments without much explanation. Specifically I'm talking about physical pedestrian links, as well as lack of psychological barriers preventing people from moving between neighborhoods.

At the most basic level, connecting places downtown can be done by having a pleasant sidewalk between them. That usually means safe sidewalks with adequate width and lots of trees, trashcans, newsracks, and "pleasant" people (something I won't get into right now, since it's such a big topic).

The street needs uniformity, too. Think about Seventh Street. The trees and light poles change every block or two. The resulting walking experience is a feeling of going into a new neighborhood every couple of minutes. This has a huge psychological effect, because it makes people worry about entering unfamiliar territory.

Of course, these are things that the city should be taking care of, and that community organizations and BIDs should be pushing for. Individual buildings can make the experience pleasant as well, by placing lighting and signage at the pedestrian's level, and having nice window displays instead of blank walls.

In the case of the Grand Avenue project, I think the current design actually preempts the possibility of such connections. From how the LA Times critic described it, the eastern and northern edges of Phase I are basically closed. This cuts off even the possibility of any pedestrian traffic from the Historic Core or any of the other eastern and northern districts.

Does this mean someone can't get to Broadway from the Grand Avenue Project? No. But if you make it hard enough, people won't even consider it. And remember, the Grand Avenue Project wasn't simply about reviving Bunker Hill. It was meant to benefit all of Downtown. It will only do that if there are decent pedestrian connections.

[Wright Concept]

^Not only connectivity to the site itself by visual continuity with the Park every one is pushing, what is the point of removing one visual bunker as some have described with the Courthouse with another one with the elevated platform and parking entrance dominating the street facade on first street.

[ksep]

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:rolleyes:

[SoCal]

is it just me, or is anyone else disgusted of the design, its seems like he's trying to hard...

[ocman]

The design is visually very busy and is a little bit sensory overload. It needs to be take it down a notch. The parts are still very disparate. I can't make sense of it. The towers seem like they are going in the right direction. It's just those retail islands that need some work, and of course, the street interaction of the whole project.

This high end condo trend is unbearable. It's an epidemic in downtown. They need lower and middleclass income housing, more than just the required %. It's too bad we can't expect it from developers. If Villariagosa can get the housing money, the city should use ot on the undeveloped parcels of Grand and make sure they get significant representation in this project.

[towersla]

I absolutely love the design, as is!

[Damien]

This high end condo trend is unbearable. It's an epidemic in downtown. They need lower and middleclass income housing, more than just the required %. It's too bad we can't expect it from developers. If Villariagosa can get the housing money, the city should use ot on the undeveloped parcels of Grand and make sure they get significant representation in this project.

To say nothing of the fact that IT ALLOWS YOU TO ADD MORE PEOPLE TO DOWNTOWN!!!! There are only so many people that can comfortably sign a $500K+ mortgage and expecting to fill all the parking lots in downtown Los Angeles west of San Pedro with them is foolish. Get some apartments in these structures and start offering them with reasonable rents ($800-1500) and watch the students, office workers, shacking-up 20-somethings, and working families fill downtown with lively pedestrian traffic. It seems that the only people who get this are the national retail chains who are hesitant to come in. The developers can't stop scratching their head, wondering why Saks Fifth Ave isn't jumping at the opportunity to put a store on every corner, and the city apparently doesn't have a clue. I mean just look at the ridiculous amount of emphasis their putting on Grand Ave. The people and the walkable part of downtown is in the Historic Core and South Park.

Nonetheless, the target population density for the area should be no less than 75K per mile, beginning with the Historic Core. There are too many beautiful buildings and so much potential there.

[Damien]

LA Weekly attacks this project for what it is, a tax give away to make a bunch of rich people, richer people, while the county's poor get the shaft:


DREAMIN' ON GRAND AVENUE

A publicly subsidized vision of downtown’s prime district
By DAVID ZAHNISER
Wednesday, April 26, 2006 - 6:00 pm

Los Angeles County government, no stranger to the concept of the looming financial crisis, has had a decent couple of years. The booming real estate market has left the county practically swimming in property-tax revenue, allowing it to hire hundreds of nurses and reduce overcrowding in its jails.

But the county also has one consistently dark corner — its health system, which faces a $1.1 billion shortfall by 2010, even after the county supervisors closed a dozen health clinics.

That complicated financial picture served as the backdrop for Monday’s unveiling of plans for a luxury hotel, upscale condos and pricey boutiques on Grand Avenue. Standing next to County Supervisor Gloria Molina and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, celebrity architect Frank Gehry showed off plans for a 47-story high rise, 25-story condo tower and a cluster of glass-enclosed shops, all across the street from the swooping curves of his masterwork, Walt Disney Concert Hall.

So why does the county matter? For one thing, it owns the block where the developer, New York–based Related Cos., plans to construct the project, which serves as the $750 million first phase of the Grand Avenue makeover. For another, the developer has already agreed to sign a 99-year ground lease for the county-owned block, which currently houses a rickety-looking parking garage used by the poor souls pressed into jury duty each day.

You might think that with such a prime piece of downtown Los Angeles real estate the county would direct at least some of the lease payments into county coffers over the next, oh, century. Instead, Related will make a single, upfront rental payment of $50 million, which the city and county have already committed to spend on public improvements that will accompany the Grand Avenue projects — a park and a reworked parking garage.

The plan annoys critics like urban historian Joel Kotkin, who argued that at least a portion of the lease money should have gone toward health clinics for the poor, overcrowded emergency rooms or reducing blight in the city’s many other neighborhoods.

“If this was Dick Riordan and he was doing these deals, the left wing and the academics would be screaming bloody murder,” said Kotkin, author of The City: A Global History.

County financial analysts said the Grand Avenue project will eventually generate another $54 million in ground-lease revenue from other city- and county-owned properties. That money won’t arrive until Related builds the second and third phases of its downtown Los Angeles megaproject, which are at least a few years away. For now, the county will have to rely on a tiny cut of the hotel revenue, rent and retail sales — $9 million spread over 99 years.

Gerry Hertzberg, Molina’s appointee on the Grand Avenue Committee, argued that the lease-funded park will make the condo/retail project more appealing to a broader range of residents. “It’s creating an amenity that can be used by everyone in the county,” he said.

Villaraigosa launched his own preemptive strike against the Kotkins of the world, touting the creation of thousands of new construction jobs and telling the crowd at Disney Hall that there is “no taxpayer money involved here.” The mayor, who famously told Angelenos to dream big on his first day in office, said critics of the project are not following his instructions.

“All the critics and the naysayers and people who just don’t want to dream and just hate the dreamers, you know they said, ‘This is impossible. We can’t subsidize the millionaires,’ — all the negative stuff you hear from the same naysayers all the time,” Villaraigosa said. “This is a city of dreams. This is a city where these kinds of projects can take place.”

As it tuns out, Related did bring up the issue of taxpayer money, saying in negotiations that it wants its 275-room hotel to keep its hotel-tax revenue for a certain number of years — money that would otherwise go toward police and other city services. Related also plans for the tax increment — growth in property-tax revenue generated by the project — to fund the public improvements on the project site.

Those pesky details weren’t discussed during the unveiling. But then, to call Monday’s event an unveiling is a bit of an overstatement. The folks who make up the Grand Avenue Committee shrewdly gave the Los Angeles Times, the city’s largest daily newspaper, an exclusive preview of the project days earlier.

The move outraged the competing Los Angeles Daily News, who heard that the committee hadn’t liked their editorials against the project. Not surprisingly, the Daily News focused on aspects of the project that are more likely to make the citizenry grumpy — like a multimillion-dollar tax giveaway.

[citywatch]

^ When a city in the SG Valley is sponsoring a new housing proj that's to be built by school students, & that's supposed to be cost affordable, & yet still says they'll be priced at around $450,000, & when no devlpr was willing to build any new housing in DT only about 5 yrs ago because the rate of return would have been too low, that should tell you just how complicated things really are.

And haven't pols (inc ppl like the mayor) & govt workers in a town like Detroit been dealing with & serving mostly poor ppl for yrs & yrs? I believe that city still is hurting & not winning any awards for success, although the arrival of big new casinos there may make the town seem less abandoned.

[Steve2726]

From:
http://www.theslatinreport.com/story.jsp?StoryName=ghery.txt&Topic=Place&fromPage=

GEHRY'S GRAND STRIDES

It was never-say-never time inside the swooping spaces of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where Frank Gehry was on hand for the first public viewing of models of the $1.8 billion Grand Avenue project, with the Related Cos. as the developer, in downtown Los Angeles. The champion of stand-alone, sculptural architecture had delivered a surprisingly down-to-earth and practical scheme for the immense mixed-use program, to be built across the street from Gehry's own Concert Hall. While not entirely free of awkward details, and few projects covering nearly three city blocks would be problem-free at this early stage of design, the Gehry scheme acknowledges the constraints of both urbanism and commercial development.

Although seldom characterized as an urbanist, Gehry has engaged the realties of a difficult topography. A slope on the long sides of the block presents the architect with constantly changing conditions at pedestrian scale. The nine-acre site also faces very different conditions on all four sides. On First Street is the flank of the Los Angeles Music Center, an ugly vestige of the 1960s notion of high culture. To the east is busy, high-rise Olive Street. To the west is low rise, underdeveloped First Street, while Grand Avenue on the west is the "cultural corridor" where the quality of pedestrian experience is the urban-planning mantra.

Of course, Gehry has already demonstrated that he can design sensitively in an urban context with his Fred and Ginger building in Prague and American Center in Paris, among others. [Editor's note: The American Center may be sensitive to its urban context, but is a design clunker.] On Grand Avenue, however, Gehry is facing greater challenges, starting with the mixed-use program for the nine-acre site, which brings together retail, office space, a five-star hotel and housing, both for sale and rental. Perhaps the premier challenge, though, is how to create a public realm around his take-no-prisoners masterpiece, Disney Hall.

Gehry told the gathering that the new project will share what he called the "body language" of the concert hall, which he described as breaking up big architectural masses into smaller, human-scale pieces. "We are taking advantage of that body language, and taking it across the street" to Grand Avenue, he said.

"We call it a village, but it's really a downtown," Gehry added. "We hope that (scale) will spread into the other side" of Grand Avenue, and become "a walking neighborhood, a place that is open and accessible from all parts of the city."

Broken down into its most basic elements, the 1.2 million-square-foot first phase of Grand Avenue consists of a 47-story tower, with a five-star hotel on lower levels and condos above. In its current form, this tall building is refreshingly simple; a slender, high-rise shaft with a base that widens slightly at the bottom, "like a skirt," in Gehry's words. The simplicity of the tower makes it a good counterpoint to the turbulent, sculptural masses of the concert hall directly across the street. A shorter companion office tower, playing Mutt and Jeff with the soaring hotel, is minimally detailed and will likely receive far more elaboration. Gehry tends to enrich, rather than simplify his designs over time. As for the tall building, however, he should quit while he's ahead.

The most important public space is the portion of Grand Avenue where the Related project meets Disney Hall, and this is perhaps the happiest moment in the Gehry scheme. Here, the architect has fashioned two free-standing, low-rise retail buildings in his untrammeled, free-style mode; two yapping, adorable pug dogs for the soignee concert hall.

Bob Harris, former dean of the school of architecture at the University of Southern California and an acute urban critic, praises this part of the scheme for filling in the empty side of the street facing the concert hall and making the entire block into something like a "Piazza del Populi."

On its less glamorous, in other words, less public--sides, problems crop up where the need to accommodate a huge program is at odds with the requirement to provide a continuous human-scale, pedestrian environment. Perhaps there is an inherent tension in melding a high-rise scheme, in which the interior spaces are the destination, with the demands of a New Urbanist low-rise retail setting. There, the peripheral street wall, the experiential plane for people on foot,is of primary value.

As currently proposed and for whatever reason, the quality of the experience at street level varies widely. Some observers at the press event expressed dismay that a parking garage was visible from First Street. Others wondered why certain corners of the project, such as First and Olive, were occupied by low-rise retail structures, rather than by dramatic gestures that address the motorists cruising down Olive. Most downtown dwellers live south of the Grand Avenue project, and will travel to the project going north via Olive, the most convenient thoroughfare to the project.

Marketing, not design, was the most objectionable part of the program. Best ignored is the annoying suggestion, promulgated by Related Chairman Steve Ross, and parroted the next day by The New York Times, that the behemoth mixed-use project will create a "center" for Los Angeles.

Despite its large, conventional downtown, Los Angeles is notoriously a-centric, being a loosely packed shopping bag of different industrial clusters and ethnic communities. Most West Los Angeles residents (as well as their neighbors in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills) rarely go downtown, except for the occasional opera or basketball game. The notion that Grand Avenue by itself will reorient Los Angeles towards downtown sounds like an idea hatched at a Chelsea pot party.

More tenable was the suggestion by real estate executive, philanthropist and fixer extraordinaire Eli Broad, that Grand Avenue would eventually join a circle of name-brand architecture in downtown Los Angeles that includes Rafael Moneo's Cathedral of Our Lady of Los Angeles and the future High School for the Visual and Performing Arts by Wolf Prix, aging bad boy of Vienna's Coop Himmelblau. This collection of architectural wonders will, predicts Broad, make Los Angeles "a city of architecture second to none."

Maybe so. But however stellar the architecture may be, it will be hard for buildings to eclipse their creators, the septuagenarian Gehry has become an A-list personality in a city that worships celebrity.

"He's a rock star!" exclaimed one photographer to another, as they elbowed aside a reporter for another shot of the grey eminence chatting amicably with the crowd.