LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 4.0

[dachacon]

I think the idea of switching stadiums that was floated not to long ago, would serve a better purpose in downtown. By putting the football stadium you allow for the tailgating culture that is synonymous before and after football games while at the same time keeping the village idiots that normally go to football games and are not invested in the community isolated from the city, in the ravine. Baseball has more games, hence more foot traffic for the area. Traffic also works out better cause the Eleysian area will only get congested 8 to 10 times a year instead of 83 times it normally does after each dodger game. While the LA LIVE area is served by the Blue Expo and soon the Gold line. and by default the red and purple lines. By offering another mode of transport the market of baseball attendees grows. Final thought Dodger Stadium has been used many times for concerts and other large scale venues (e.g. Madonna and Eagles concerts, Papal masses) by building the stadium there it allows for an expansion of the the concert venues that Staples, and Nokia theatre cant handle.

[dachacon]

^^
sorry for the mis spellings but its late, and im tired but wanted to say my two cents before i forget. It pains me to suggest what i just wrote cause i love where dodger stadium is now with its beautiful views of the the city, and mountains, and the history it has being there, but thinking on the larger scale and what is better for the city in my opinion the positives greatly our weigh the negatives.

[RAlossi]

The issue with a baseball stadium (though I agree on the benefits of baseball vs football stadium despite the unfortunate incident involving the Giants fan) is that it hampers the ability of conventions to use the space during the season. The point isn't to get as many games in there as possible; it's to expand and upgrade the convention space, and oh by the way, when you're not using it, we have 8 games a year to play there too. Any significant decrease in the amount of usable space at the center for a good portion of the year would be a dealbreaker.

[ChelseaFC]

People miss that point. If we don't expand the convention center and give it more business, the entire project is useless. And it would be much more difficult to make a baseball stadium convention-friendly than a football one.

[pesto]

Originally Posted by LosAngelesDreamin

I agree... Petco Park in san diego revitalized it's surrounding area, tons developments of hotels built, bars and clubs and an iconic pedestrian suspension bridge... Farmers Field will bring a lot to Los Angeles.

Petco is baseball; 81 games per year.

In any event, Petco was at the tail end of a 40 year development process. New cruise facilities, hotels, Gas Lamp, transit, shopping centers and commercial and residential high-rise pre-dated it by 20 years.

[alki]

do u think the office market will improve by 2017 when the hotel tower opens??

Job creation begets office space. So far in this recovery, LA's job creation has been anemic.....only a few metro areas are experiencing strong job growth. In addition, DTLA is in competition with Century City and the entire West Side as well as the Valley for office development.

Having said that, I think DTLA is in the best position to get new office space development in decades. Downtown's population is growing, all roads......er.....I mean all transit lines lead to downtown and downtown has become hip. The last one was evidenced by a song line in the film Burlesque which I got snagged into watching last weekends. CA was singing about how she likes living in LA and has breakfast at the Polo Lounge, cocktails at the Courtyard, bla, bla, bla.....and then I think she's says dinner is downtown. If, in fact, I heard correctly, I don't think that line would have been in the song ten years ago. Hollywood admitting that downtown exists other than as a seedy backwater for a drug film is huge.

And then there are the architectural/creative firms migrating downtown. Like restaurants are to pedestrian traffic, creative firms are to other office users. They make life downtown more interesting and encourage other non creative users to make the move. Cheaper rents also are a motivating factor.

Kudos on the Wilshire Grand hotel coming down..........never liked that building. It gave beige a bad name.

[alki]

The way the Wilshire Grand looks now, it's such a horrible mismatch of styles. I'm glad it's going to be gone. That block has evolved a lot in the last 100 years:

From the photos, it doesn't look like LA ever was a walking city.

[alki]

[QUOTE=Illithid Dude;5301789][IMG]https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-2ouesjYqrXM/Tef6D0D6cSI/AAAAAAAAAsw/NETmlgebfz4/s800/IMG_0667.JPG[/IMG]

THAT is what I call quality architecture. Check out that hulking massing, reflective, anti-pedestrian windows, and super-classy beige stucco. Sexy.[/QUOTE]

I like the building. It looks a little institutional but it has a deco feel to it. As for the stucco, I don't mind the smooth stuff as a facade element..........its the textured stuff that looks cheap to me.

[alki]

[Originally posted by sopas ej;5302028]I only asked what I did because I feel that these towers would be far more elegant and attractive without LED lighting and ads. I agree with what you're saying about the new development; why can't they just secure the funding for the whole project and then build the whole project instead of doing it piecemeal? It just ends up looking like a comb with teeth missing; you can't appreciate how the whole thing is supposed to look until the whole thing is built.

These days no lender will provide financing for an office bldg without a committment by a major user. Consequently, very few spec office bldgs are going up in this country. Most breaking ground in 2011 are to be owner occupied.

[alki]

Originally posted by dachacon:

By offering another mode of transport the market of baseball attendees grows.

The busiest days on Seattle's LRT is when the Mariners are playing. Its a great way to go to a game.

[djlx2]

I don't actually know much about downtown LA other than the fact that it seems to need a lot of rehabbing. Baseball is a pretty fundamental aspect to any city, however, so hopefully they'll get transit worked out at some point so everyone who wants to can get to the games.

[Illithid Dude]

Originally Posted by alki

Hollywood admitting that downtown exists other than as a seedy backwater for a drug film is huge.

Have you seen 500 Days of Summer? That entire movie is like a love letter to downtown Los Angeles. I mean, there are whole scenes that consists solely of the main character looking dreamily at the architecture and talking about how beautiful it is.

[LosAngelesDreamin]

Originally Posted by pesto

Petco is baseball; 81 games per year.

In any event, Petco was at the tail end of a 40 year development process. New cruise facilities, hotels, Gas Lamp, transit, shopping centers and commercial and residential high-rise pre-dated it by 20 years.

yea but petco also fueled more development in the area. even if development was already planned before petco, the area still wouldn't have what petco brought today, more hotels and condos and the bridge. and its still bringing more development east of it.

i dont think sd created new cruise ship terminals before petco.. the broadway pier terminal was built only recently built.

[LosAngelesDreamin]

Originally Posted by alki

From the photos, it doesn't look like LA ever was a walking city.

check out the beginning of this video.. its about the Los Angeles Streetcar BUT you can see how Los Angeles used to be such a pedestrian friendly city.. 0:19-0:23 shows how the streets of LA used to be like before the creation of the freeways and the car obsessed culture.

http://youtu.be/h5C65fZLwg8

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by BrighamYen

thanks Rich!

I'll second that. Photo updates help give a better sense of what's going on. speaking of which, I'll put in a link to a post of yours, but from your own blog. this is a very detailed look at the changes on the street level to the older part of dt:

Changing face of old historic core in downtown la

these pics I liked the best. they show something important to an active street scene....


brighamyen.com


brighamyen.com

this pic is the most regrettable, cuz it shows a bldg where a previous owner, believe it or not, spent big $$ a loong time ago to redo the facade. the terra cotta portion shown on the lower portion was torn off the entire bldg (except a few small parts near the bldg's entrances) & replaced with the brown paneling.


brighamyen.com
I always go when I see that bldg & think of what was done to it.

only the thought of the demolition of, & seeing pics of the historic old atlantic richfield bldg makes me go even more.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by citywatch

this pic is the most regrettable, cuz it shows a bldg where a previous owner, believe it or not, spent big $$ a loong time ago to redo the facade. the terra cotta portion shown on the lower portion was torn off the entire bldg (except a few small parts near the bldg's entrances) & replaced with the brown paneling.

I always go when I see that bldg & think of what was done to it.

I'm not fully sure, but judging by how deep the window recesses are, it's possible that the brown paneling was just placed over the original surface of the building, and if the owner wanted to, he/she/they could invest in pulling off the paneling and restoring the building to its original appearance; that's what was done last year to a 1-story bank building in my town of South Pasadena.

However, looking at an old photo of what the building used to look like, a lot of details would need to be recreated, most notably the ornate cornices:

1926

LAPL

Today

Google Street View

What a horrible difference 75 years make. I wonder if the people in the 1926 photo would've been horrified back then had they known what that streetscape would look like in the early 21st century.

Originally Posted by citywatch

only the thought of the demolition of, & seeing pics of the historic old atlantic richfield bldg makes me go even more.

Agreed. The Atlantic Richfield Building was an LA treasure; it's a shame it was demolished.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by alki

From the photos, it doesn't look like LA ever was a walking city.

Well, my point was to convey how what's been considered LA's "downtown area" has actually expanded in area over time. That intersection of 7th and Figueroa was actually a quiet residential section on the edge of town in 1900. In the 1920s and 1930s, LA's main commercial, business and financial districts were still mainly east of this intersection; much of south Figueroa at this point apparently was all warehouses and car dealerships, so, there wouldn't have been much pedestrian activity in this area back then anyway. When you think about it, the car dealerships and old warehouse-type buildings that exist today further south on Figueroa are vestiges of what used to exist along more of Figueroa.

If you look at old photos of what used to exist in the area of where the Convention Center is now, you'd see that there were lots of old 2-story brick apartment buildings that used to exist there, mixed in among warehouses. People lived in that area, but back then, it wasn't considered downtown; they wouldn't have been considered downtown residents. I remember when the Convention Center expansion was built--- whole blocks and streets were obliterated to build the expansion, as well as Staples Center.

It's funny to me that some people now are considering the USC area as part of downtown.

[Kingofthehill]

iirc, the owners of the haas building (of whose vodka bar should be opening any day now?) said that removing the brown panels wasn't possible without compromising the building

[sopas ej]

Not to stray too much off topic being that this thread is supposed to be about new developments, but apparently the State Theater building catty-corner to the Haas Building was also going to be "Modernized." Anyone who knows downtown LA would know this building.

In 1955, it was going to remodeled to look like this:

USC Archive

Instead of keeping it like this:

LAPL

That last photo is circa late 1920s/early 1930s. So many pedestrians and hustle and bustle, and this was often, not just for something called Artwalk (and probably not as obnoxious and pretentious).

[colemonkee]

Wow, that would have been terrible. I love that building.