LOS ANGELES | Downtown Project Rundown 3.0

[petescafe]

When I got home this evening I saw this down below.
Don't know what it means but looks promising.

[LosAngelesBeauty]

This is a quick snapshot of the fickle billboard that was reported here a week ago. Looks promising as well. Let's hope the sales on those condos are brisk!





This billboard for Park Fifth reminds me of something similar I saw in Taipei underneath the Taipei 101, except this one was an advertisement for their expanding subway system (MRT - Mass Rapid Transit).

[citywatch]

Thanks, petescafe & LAB for the photo updates.

If that equipment on the site of the medallion means what I hope it does, then one big question about the proj may be answered before Thursday's meeting. IOW, it sure would be nice if a lot of asphalt & dirt starts flying within the next 2 days.

And I agree with colemonkee about parkfifth's billboard, in that the pic of the guy on the phone makes it hard to know what's being promoted. Unless a passerby already was aware that a condo tower was being planned for the site, they'd think the ad maybe was a promotion for sunglasses or cell phone service.


BTW, I saw a post in the LA forum, under the thread about the South Gps condo towers & it should make ppl both & .

I'm not sure if anyone else has had any security issues around here, but I was walking to the gym at 505 Flower on Wednesday night and I passed a Hispanic guy maybe mid to late 20s I'm guessing, 240 pounds, 5'7" roughly, and he was pissing all over the sidewalk. I just kept looking down and passed him, but when I was about twenty feet past and he was about ten feet down the street where I came from (the condo building), he starts shouting at me and I don't hear what he says, but I keep walking away. He starts following me and I keep walking away but glancing back to see if he's still following me. He is approaching fast, so finally he's about 15 feet away and I turn around and stop and ask him what his problem is. He accuses me of checking him out, calls me a "fucking faggot" and makes all of these other homophobic, racist statements.....

He wants to fight, I tell him I have no problem with him and I'm a peaceful person, I don't want to fight him. Then he throws down his bag and his jacket, and he starts acting like he's going to fight me. I still refuse to fight him, and I start to walk away again but I quickly turn around as I hear him approaching me, and just as I turn I don't see it coming but I feel his fist slam into my left cheek. It didn't move me or knock me down, just sort of shocked me a bit, and I throw down my jacket and drop back into my fighting stance (I'm a black belt in Tae-Kwon-Do and Hapkido).....

.....While I feel very safe in the South Park neighborhood immediately around the condo complex and from what I hear this area has gotten ten times more safe just since last summer, it's a reminder that unfortunately we do not live in a safe city yet. There are too many transients (even if that number is way down), there is too much gang activity, and frankly there isn't enough development in some areas of the city even right next to us. Around that 7th and 8th street area, there are abandoned buildings and parking garages, ironically right on a metro stop.

It's the writer's comment about the kind of bldgs around elleven that stood out to me, cuz it relates to my saying yesterday that one additional benefit of work beginning on the LA Central proj is that the shutting down of a major parking lot next to Staples hopefully will encourage owners of some of the dive bldgs throughout South Pk to tear them down & replace them with new parking lots.

I think psychos like the one described above will feel 10 times more comfortable wandering around a hood full of rundown old bldgs, esp if they're abandoned or vacant most hrs of the day. Plus ppl may feel 10 times more comfortable taking a wizz out in public if they're standing next to the wall of an old bldg instead of out in a totally open space, like the areas where Staples parking lots have been located for the past several yrs.

[fridayinla]

Been hanging out in Chicago the last several days. The weather is perfect here (I lucked out), reminds me of home... countless highrises under construction, makes me forget home.

That story about the hispanic guy attack doesn't phase me about downtown's safety or anger me in any way. I'm sorry it happened to that forumer, but it's just an isolated incident, and could've happened in any safe town across the country. Frequently on the weekends my boyfriend and I walk from the 7th/Fig metro station to City West, passed several seedy motels and people, late at night coming home from Hollywood and never get harassed. In fact, I've walked around all areas of downtown 11pm-ish with my camera and never had any issues. Downtown is not dangerous, it's just intimidating when no people are around, and you have to walk down dimly lit blocks of ugly parking structures/bland buildings with weren't designed for pedestrians.

[BrandonJXN]

Childs play. I've walked down Broadway at 3am (as in the morning), in City West (around 1100 Wilshire) and down by Staples and haven't been bothered. Downtown isn't extremely dangerous but as friday said, it is a very scary looking place.

[Echo Park]

My only experience with a transients downtown is the homeless man who found a metal hanger for me and was able to help me unlock my car which I had drunkedly locked inside while catching a show at the Smell. generally I've had lots of friendly chats with the homeless downtown. I'm glad that writer mentioned that man was hispanic though and that fridayinla reiterated that fact because thats very important fact, otherwise i wouldn't have known just how creepy this guy was these are the poeple moving into downtown folks. A vertical version of the valley. Different layout, same racist demographic.

[Sodha]

Back to the topic at hand....I heard a construction fence has surrounded LA Central via Curbed LA!!! Anybody seen this?

[DTLA]

^I'm gonna be in downtown tommorrow or thursday so i'll see if i can get some pictures of the site

[colemonkee]

I'll drive by it on the way home tonight. I won't have my camera on me, but I can verify whether or not the fence has grown or not.

[funhaus]

Originally Posted by Sodha

Back to the topic at hand....I heard a construction fence has surrounded LA Central via Curbed LA!!! Anybody seen this?

As of this morning, the majority of the site is still fence-free. Not much different than Easy's photographs from the other day.

However, yesterday midday they did erect a partial construction fence along the outermost edge of the 11th Street side, mid-block. So that leaves Flower Street as the only edge without some partial fencing.

Haven't been able to observe their progress today, however.

[WonderlandPark]

yuppie/guppie on his phone doesn't say much if you don't know what is going on here.



Construction lift on the back side of the building to be renovated. A good sign.

[Sodha]

That sign "downtown is looking up" is ridiculously awesome. It's selling a lifestyle. We can all banter about how much better a sign can be, but we're not all marketing geniuses. The sign sparks interest and intrigue. I'm sure some people have gone home and looked up parkfifth.com. Can't wait to see that huge parking lot tarnished and home to a 76 story building! Will we be seeing 80 story buildings soon thereafter???

[colemonkee]

Originally Posted by Sodha

That sign "downtown is looking up" is ridiculously awesome. It's selling a lifestyle. We can all banter about how much better a sign can be, but we're not all marketing geniuses.

I've been working in advertising for almost 10 years now. I can help explain this a bit better. This sign is the equivalent to a movie teaser - the "preview" you see several months before a summer blockbuster comes out that shows you just enough to get your interest peaked and to generate initial awareness that the movie is on it's way. It will eventually be replaced with an ad that tells more of the story (condos, possible pricing, amenities, "tallest residential in LA", etc.).

The problem with this ad is that it's not "teasing" anything. They've had very heavy print exposure and frequency within their target demo (HHI $150K+) for about six months with the ads that feature the building. They've been running ads in every issue of the Downtown News, Los Angeles Magazine, and every other day in the Business Section of the LA Times.

The only people they are "teasing" at this point with an ad on site are people who probably can't afford to purchase there. I don't have any market research sitting in front of me, but I would wager that the percentage of people making $150K plus that pass by that site who haven't seen at least two print ads is probably less than 20%. That's an 80% waste of creative messaging.

The best part of this ad - and I think it's really, really good - is it's tagline: "Downtown is looking up". It communicates a lot about the development (re: tall, exclusive, good investment) and the downtown community (re: urban, growing, emerging market, good investment) in four words. That's great ad copy.

The design - meh. Anyone can advertise lifestyle. What sets this development apart from the others is its unique design (huuuge balconies), amenities (very large private patios, several pools, etc), and it's location (guaranteed southern and eastern views). Put the render of the building on that site and you double the amount of people that look up ParkFifth.com. That much I can say with utmost certainty.

[WonderlandPark]

Originally Posted by colemonkee

Put the render of the building on that site and you double the amount of people that look up ParkFifth.com. That much I can say with utmost certainty.

Good analysis. Does allowing you target market to put 2+@ together mean anything? They see the ads, then they walk by this, something completely different--copy is different, image is different. Does that do anything? Do people have to be hit over the head with, say the orange rendering of the tower again and again? Is there room for another take? After all, pedestrians are walking the streets, why not beckon them to "look up?" There were plenty of the target demo walking around-young men & women in suits/business wear or driving by in Acuras, Beamers, ect. I am a big fan of branding, but you can't beat people to death with it. It is nice to see a person to identify with in some sense, then see the building renderings in another ad.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by fridayinla

Been hanging out in Chicago the last several days. The weather is perfect here (I lucked out), reminds me of home... countless highrises under construction, makes me forget home.

I recall going through a Chicago newspaper about 6 or 7 yrs ago, & seeing countless number of ads for highrise condos & apts. It was a very odd sight to me cuz I've never seen that type of ad, or so many of them, in the LA Times. And all those ads from several yrs ago were printed well BEFORE the current highrise boom in chicago.

When you consider what has been or is being built in other cities, from chicago to vancouver, from NYC to san diego, it really will be unnacceptable if we in LA----referring to buyers & renters----can't support not only a proj like parkfifth, but several variations of it.

That story about the hispanic guy attack doesn't phase me about downtown's safety or anger me in any way. I'm sorry it happened to that forumer, but it's just an isolated incident, and could've happened in any safe town across the country.

Personally, I find it hard not to get angry at the idea of an innocent pedestrian being bullied or physically harrassed. I hope it doesn't require something like a description of a dog walking on a sidewalk & being kicked by a stranger, instead of a story like this, before a person finally has a desire to say "that makes me angry".

And psychos wandering through the hood will do as much, if not more, to discourage streetlife as will be done by a whole slew of anti urban planning----inc sidewalks that are too narrow, streets that are too wide, & bldgs that aren't oriented to the passerby----a lack of good transit & too many auto centric features in general.

One major reason that a lot of ppl continue to favor the burbs is cuz of their fear of crime, or not wanting to put up with the dangerous wacko behavior that many ppl associate with gritty old hoods.

Incidents described by the resident of Elleven also have a way of spreading quickly by word of mouth. I know when a young woman was shot & killed on a street in Westwood back in the 1980s, that one event was seen as the beginning of the decline of that hood, which wasn't even as shaky to begin with as DT has long been.

[citywatch]

Originally Posted by WonderlandPark

Construction lift on the back side of the building to be renovated. A good sign.

That bldg is the Title guarantee lofts, which I believe already is open & available for leasing. I've heard the psf leasing rates for it are quite high.

The owner of that bldg has close ties with the devlpr of Parkfifth, & so I'm sure the early response to the TG bldg will have some impact on plans for parkfifth, inc how aggressive the devlpr will be in getting construction actually underway.

And thanks for your pic. It shows that parkfifth's billboard was set up rather well, anchored in small concrete pylons. Other pics of it made me unsure whether the sign was super temporary, perhaps sitting on rollers to be carted away quickly, or so flimsily built that it looked like the owner wanted to save a few bucks.

And your photo shows again why I really hate that parking lot. It really deadens the corner of 5th & Olive, & the Pershing Sq area in general.

[Just-In-Cali]

Im new to the forum, but have been following it for a while now. I love the progress being made downtown. I am not even a resident there, but cant wait to get a chance to move in. Last Sat, while walking through the South Park area, and then Little Tokyo, I was impressed by the changes I saw even in the last 5 months. Its more than just new buildings and business. It seems the attitudes of people who live down there have changed. They can feel the energy getting better. That is the most exciting part. Even City West seems to have a heartbeat these days.
As for our race-card playing friend on here...sorry...all of us fall into a "catagory" at one time or another. If he had been a white man, would YOU have mentioned it? No, of course not, cause like so many, you only worry about racism when it seems to affect someone like yourself...a la Jesse Jackson. Lets keep the topic on point, the new era of the heart of one of the worlds greatest cities.

[colemonkee]

Originally Posted by WonderlandPark

Good analysis. Does allowing you target market to put 2+@ together mean anything? They see the ads, then they walk by this, something completely different--copy is different, image is different. Does that do anything? Do people have to be hit over the head with, say the orange rendering of the tower again and again? Is there room for another take? After all, pedestrians are walking the streets, why not beckon them to "look up?" There were plenty of the target demo walking around-young men & women in suits/business wear or driving by in Acuras, Beamers, ect. I am a big fan of branding, but you can't beat people to death with it. It is nice to see a person to identify with in some sense, then see the building renderings in another ad.

It all depends on what their objectives are for this particular sign. If they're goal is to generate curiosity and initial awareness, this ad will likely be very effective. But given that I've been watching their advertising efforts pretty closely, it doesn't seem to fit into their overall strategy, which appears thus far to be generating consideration and purchase intent.

Regardless of their advertising goals - which at the end of the day will be to sell condos - the fact that they are putting so much effort into a marketing campaign suggests a strong commitment to follow through with the project.

[Echo Park]

re: that ad, sheesh why don't they just put in big text "PARK FIFTH: You're too poor to live here!"

[WonderlandPark]

Originally Posted by Echo Park

re: that ad, sheesh why don't they just put in big text "PARK FIFTH: You're too poor to live here!"

Well, that is what I see in that ad, too. At the same time I welcome Park 5th if that is what the market will bear. I would love to see an 800 ft. tower come downtown, near transit and breathe some life into Pershing Square.

I also welcome the 250 square foot condo. I want to be able to afford to buy a place in the city that is not in Lancaster or Moreno Valley.